Elon Musk’s DOGE Faces Trio of Lawsuits Following Trump’s Inauguration
Within minutes of President Donald Trump being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the Elon Musk-led faux agency tasked with slashing federal programs, regulations and workforce — was sued three times.
All three lawsuits allege that the creation of DOGE shouldn’t be considered a federal agency — which can only happen through an act of Congress but rather an advisory committee. The lawsuits argue that not setting up DOGE as an advisory committee violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (FACA), which among other requirements, states that all meetings are public record and that its membership be “fairly balanced” in its points of view.
Two of the lawsuits were filed by the progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen and the pro-democracy organization Democracy Forward. A third lawsuit was filed by public-interest firm National Security Counselors.
In November, Trump announced that he tapped billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist-turned-failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to run DOGE, which he said would, “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” In the weeks after the announcement, both Musk and Ramaswamy touted federal cuts that were straight out of the Project 2025 playbook.
When Trump signed an executive order on Monday to formally create DOGE, it came with the news that Ramaswamy would no longer be involved, as he prepares to launch a bid for Ohio governor.
“As constructed, DOGE’s mission to advise OMB and the White House on how to slash regulations and cut expenditures puts at risk important consumer safeguards and public protections,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement. “It fails to consider how to more efficiently regulate companies to better protect consumers, how to eliminate wasteful and inefficient corporate subsidies and efficient public investments to make America stronger.”
Public Citizen’s lawsuit argues that because DOGE’s creation violates the FACA, its work and recommendations “may endanger plaintiffs and the hundreds of thousands of everyday people whom they represent.” The lawsuit was filed with the State Democracy Defenders Fund and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the biggest federal employees union.
In an interview with Democracy Docket in November, AFGE public policy director Jacqueline Simon said that Project 2025 repeatedly calls for the new conservative administration to implement changes, regardless of legality. “They say to just move forward, go ahead and implement and worry about defending it in court later,” Simon said. “Expect legal challenges, because they know what they’re doing is unlawful.”
In a statement on Monday, AFGE president Everett Kelley said that AFGE “will not stand idly by as a secretive group of ultra-wealthy individuals with major conflicts of interest attempt to deregulate themselves and give their own companies sweetheart government contracts while firing civil servants and dismantling the institutions designed to serve the American people.”
Read Public Citizen’s lawsuit here.