DOGE Timeline: Government Layoffs, Efficiency and Technology Goals, Target Milestones, Lawsuits and Reality Checks

Welcome to earlier DOGE status updates.

February 5 - AFL-CIO Files Lawsuit: The AFL-CIO, together with a coalition of its affiliated unions and an economic think tank, filed a lawsuit to block DOGE from accessing Department of Labor's IT systems.

February 5 - Investigating Medicare and Medicaid Services: DOGE representatives have access to key Medicare and Medicaid payment and contracting systems, The Wall Street Journal reported. The strategy involving hunting for what DOGE considers wasteful spending while "examining the agency’s organizational design and how it is staffed." Referring to Medicaid payment systems, Musk wrote on X: "Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening."

February 5 - USAID Employees - What's Next? Almost all USAID employees will be put on paid leave starting February 7, 2025, The New York Times reported.

February 4 - Legal Question Marks: The Wall Street Journal published a list of potential legal issues facing DOGE.

February 4 - Are DOGE Moves Illegal?: U.S. government officials are privately warning that Musk's DOGE blitz appears illegal, The Washington Post reported.

February 4 - Department of Education: DOGE is scrutinizing the U.S. Department of Education, which Trump ultimately wants to shut down, The New York Times reported.

February 4 - Read-Only Access to Treasury Department: The Treasury Department said it is conducting an “operational efficiency assessment” of its payment systems and that the agency hasn’t suspended or rejected any payment instructions, after people tied to DOGE gained read-only access to the system, The Wall Street Journal reported.

February 3 - Musk's Governmental Power: President Trump said there are curbs in place to prevent Musk from doing anything in the government without the White House’s blessing, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump was responding to growing confusion about who was overseeing Musk’s push to dismantle multiple agencies, the journal noted.

February 3 - Severance Offer: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has sent a second email to federal employees, offering additional details about a deferred resignation offer, ABC news reported. The "deferred resignation" program, essentially a severance package, offers to continue to pay federal employees through Sept. 30, 2025, if they resign by February 6, 2025.

February 3 - Lawsuit: Multiple groups have filed suit against the Department of the Treasury for sharing confidential data with DOGE, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is a plaintiff in the suit.

February 3 - Public Broadcasting Under the Microscope: The House DOGE Subcommittee is targeting NPR and PBS for alleged liberal bias, Politico reported.

February 3 - Marco Rubio's Additional Role: President Trump appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting administrator for USAID. Rubio notified Congress that a review of USAID's foreign assistance activity is underway “with an eye towards potential reorganization," The Hill reported. Related: See earlier updates below describing how DOGE was striving to shut down USAID.

February 3 - Democrats Seek to Protect USAID Agency: Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii) said he would place a “blanket hold” on all of President Trump’s State Department nominees until DOGE ends shutdown effort involving USAID, The Wall Street Journal reported.

February 3 - USAID Agency Shutdown?: DOGE is striving to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) because the agency is beyond repair, Musk asserts, according to the Associated Press and CBS. The Trump administration shut down the USAID website on February 1, and the agency's headquarters is closed to personnel on February 3.

February 1 - USAID Leaders Placed on Leave: Director for Security John Vorhees and Deputy Director for Security Brian McGill were put on leave February 1 after they denied DOGE representatives access to U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) systems, multiple reports said.

February 1 - IT Staff Resignations?: IT staff members, now part of the DOGE team, raised multiple questions about Trump's plan to offer severance to employees who resign under a "deferred resignation" strategy, Wired reported. However, DOGE HR representative Stephanie Holmes had few answers for employees during a January 31 meeting, Wired reported.

February 1 - Treasury System Access Concerns: Representatives of Musk were granted “full access” to a U.S. Treasury payments system used to disperse trillions of dollars to Americans each year, and warned that Musk’s access to the system poses a “national security risk," TechCrunch Reported. The warning came from Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

February 1 - DOGE Gains Treasury System Access: The Trump administration and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have signed off on a plan to give access to the Treasury payment system to a team led by Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group (parent of Citrix), Politico reported. Krause is now working for the Treasury Department and serves as a liaison to Musk’s DOGE group that operates out of the United States Digital Service, Politico said. Still, the Treasury system has safeguards that prevents Krause from making changes to the platform, the report asserted.

February 1 - Georgia's State-level Plan: Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican lieutenant governor, has introduced a plan similar to DOGE that "will bring much-needed government accountability to his state," FOX News reported.

Continue to next page for DOGE status updates from January 2025 and earlier.