As uncertainty shrouds the identity of the formal chief of the Department of Government Efficiency, Semafor is told the position remains vacant.
DOGE was created as a rebrand of the United States Digital Service at the start of the Trump administration, and the previous administrator of the digital service, Mina Hsiang, stepped down when Trump took office in January. The lack of a publicly named successor is creating confusion as the Trump administration argues in court that Elon Musk, despite his frequent identification as a DOGE leader, plays no formal role in its efforts to slash the size and scope of government.
Asked if there is a single person running DOGE, which has established footholds in multiple federal agencies and sought access to sensitive government payment systems, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., replied: “Not that I’m aware of.”
The View From A Former OMB Official
Stuart Shapiro, [current Bloustein School Dean and] a professor at Rutgers University who worked in the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said not having a figurehead atop DOGE “doesn’t matter a ton” because the office “is still kind of a made-up entity.”
But, Shapiro said, it does allow the Trump administration to avoid legal, public, and congressional scrutiny.
“This feels to me very much like they are playing rope-a-dope with the courts a little bit,” he said. “They are saying, ‘oh, well, no, you can’t bring that person in to testify because they’re not the head of DOGE.’”
“What that does is it strings things out and allows them to continue to wreak havoc within the executive branch,” he added.