On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), fulfilling his November 2024 campaign promise to create the entity under Elon Musk's leadership. The order reorganized the existing U.S. Digital Service into the "U.S. DOGE Service" within the Executive Office of the President and created a temporary organization dedicated to advancing an 18-month DOGE agenda, scheduled to terminate on July 4, 2026.
Vivek Ramaswamy, initially named co-leader with Musk, departed within days to pursue a gubernatorial campaign in Ohio. The executive order gave DOGE teams authority to embed in federal agencies, access agency data and systems, and recommend cuts to spending, regulations, and workforce. The order effectively granted a private billionaire with extensive federal contracts unprecedented access to the inner workings of the government agencies that regulate his own companies -- creating conflicts of interest that would define the DOGE saga throughout 2025.