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This timeline highlights examples of key actions the U.S. DOGE Service has taken since its inception, including the ways it has accessed sensitive data systems, removed critical employees with little justification or transparency, and undertaken reckless actions in the name of "efficiency." We the Builders believes there are better ways to approach the goals that DOGE is claiming as they undertake these actions, and we've shared these alternatives below. We want to illustrate what the scalpel would actually look like, and why it would work better than the sledge hammer.
Note this is not a comprehensive account of all of DOGE's actions. It is continuously updated and is current as of April 7, 2025.
A federal judge rules that the White House and DOGE's unilateral shut down of USAID likely violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause and separation of powers. DOGE and Musk are prohibited under the judge's order from taking any other actions relating to USAID without the express authorization of an agency official with legal authority to take the action. The Trump administration is likely to appeal the decision.
Rather than eliminating USAID outright, a more effective approach to improving efficiency of foreign aid delivery would have been working with the USAID Office of Audits, Inspections, and Evaluations within the Office of Inspector General. In addition to uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse, this team promotes effectiveness and efficiency of foreign assistance. Efforts were already underway to reform USAID, and this should have been the first stop on the path to re-envision the agency.
A federal judge rules that DOGE is required to begin a "rolling" production of its internal records in order to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. The judge finds that DOGE exercises "substantial independent authority" that cannot be shielded from public scrutiny, despite the administration's efforts to shield its operations. DOGE is ordered to file a status report by 20 March.
A foundational tenet of improvement and efficiency efforts is to involve employees and be transparent from the start to build momentum and source the best improvements. Those staff and executives who have worked in agencies the longest know the pain points and challenges faced at the ground level, and they're the best experts to raise those issues in efforts to improve the services their teams provide. DOGE's efforts to keep their work secret suggests that they are not truly pursuing improvements and efficiencies for taxpayers but rather have more nefarious and selfish objectives.
GSA leadership eliminates the technology consulting group 18F, citing that the group has been deemed "non-critical" in the context of a broader agency reduction in force. 18F partnered with agencies across the federal government to improve their technology, and its elimination contradicts DOGE's claims that they are here to fix the government's antiquated technology.
If the technology experts in GSA were "non-critical," why is DOGE seeking "software engineers, product managers, designers, data scientists, business analysts, and cybersecurity professionals" to implement their critical mission? Leveraging 18F, GSA Technology Transformation Service (TTS), and USDS talent would have been more efficient than firing them, only to rehire for the same roles weeks later.
Court documents from a lawsuit against one of the unions representing employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reveal Trump administration plans to reduce the bureau from 1,700 employees to five. Earlier this month, new leadership of CFPB dismissed four significant enforcement lawsuits undertaken against Capital One, Rocket Homes Real Estate, and two other loan servicers and mortgage lenders, which were intended to rectify billions of dollars in alleged consumer harm.
The complete dismantling of CFPB is a direct effort to reduce enforcement against bad actors in the finance sector and eliminate consumer protections for Americans. There is no explanation for this action other than helping rich financial institutions save millions in legal fees and opening the door to new schemes to defraud the American public with obtuse and manipulative financial instruments. This might be more "efficient" for banks, but it creates risk for taxpayers and their financial well-being.
An Executive Order "Implementing the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency' Cost Efficiency Initiative" directs agencies to "build a centralized technological system within the agency to seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment." The order also calls on agency leadership to review all grants and contracts and “terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of” the Trump administration.
Before building a new technology system, it's always best to understand what's currently there and to leverage it to meet the stated goals. Agencies have many grant programs, often with a wide array of grantees and potentially with no programmatic relation to each other. Tracking every agency payment centrally is not necessary to achieve that agency's program objectives. Moreover, it could make these programs and payments more vulnerable as a target for cybersecurity attacks or privacy violations. So we have to ask, what is the goal of centralizing all agency payments? It's not a given that it would make those disbursements more efficient or effective (on the contrary, this order requires extra paperwork for every payment), but it would consolidate the administration's control over those payments.
In the "wall of receipts" published by DOGE to track savings across agencies via "asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions," reporters uncover "accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes," such as double or triple-counting contracts, or claiming contracts were closed that were actually completed during the Biden administration. Moreover, 40% of the contracts canceled by DOGE are expected to produce no savings. Trump says he considered giving 20% of the savings from DOGE efforts to American citizens via what he terms a "DOGE dividend."
Building a comprehensive account of cost savings requires validating data sources, pulling in agency and subject matter experts who are familiar with line items, and certainly not rushing to publish a "wall of mistakes." This DOGE deliverable demonstrates their goal to boast the largest dollar value rather than prioritize honest accounting of savings for taxpayers.
DOGE fires over 40 U.S. Digital Service staff members who were hired for their extensive product, design, procurement, operations, and engineering expertise.
To build a 21st century government and improve digital service delivery, we need more technologists in government, not fewer. Expanding the U.S. Digital Service, 18F, and agency digital service teams would have been the easiest, most efficient way to further this good work.
The first firings of estimated 200,000 probationary employees begins at Health and Human Services (HHS), General Services Administration (GSA), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A strategic reshaping of the workforce would identify opportunities to reshape roles and reduce headcount at each agency, with a focus on strategic initiatives and cost savings for tax payers. Cutting probationary employees wholesale includes people who might be new to government but have specialized skills (for example, building and maintaining AI models), or people who have worked for the government for years but have recently transitioned to new roles (for example, veterans who transition to civilian roles).
Executive Order titled "Implementing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Workforce Optimization Initiative" directs agencies to make large scale reductions in the federal workforce and receive DOGE approval before hiring for any positions. This direction does not include an emphasis on preserving the most effective teams or on ensuring service delivery in the face of workforce reductions.
True workforce optimization involves analyzing organizational priorities, estimating capacity available to achieve those priorities, identifying where gaps may exist, and revising the headcount and workforce strategy to right-size the organization. As part of the President's Management Agenda, OPM developed resources for agencies to implement strategic workforce reshaping and partnered with agencies to improve their workforce alignment for the future of work. Across-the-board limits on hiring are not a strategic or effective way to optimize your workforce and maintain delivery of key functions. Instead, they grind the system to a halt by creating a "Swiss cheese" workforce of random vacancies and misaligned priorities.
DOGE feeds sensitive Department of Education data to an AI tool hosted by Microsoft Azure, reportedly in an effort to identify potential savings. This move raises concerns about data privacy, since it is unclear whether there is a formal contracting agreement with Microsoft and an Authorization to Operate (ATO), a process that helps manage risk and data privacy when government agencies utilize external technology vendors.
When the government uses AI tools, the creators of those tools should agree they won't leverage government data to refine their models, in order to ensure privacy and security for Americans. Ensuring there is an Authorization to Operate (ATO) with an AI vendor and a contract with clearly outlined objectives and guardrails would help ensure secure and strategic use of a tool like Microsoft Azure AI. AI experts already working in the government know this and could work with Microsoft or other vendors to determine the best approach to meet a specific goal with AI--rather than throwing all the data at a model and hoping it tells you something.
DOGE team begins search for fraud in Medicare and Medicaid payment systems, which Musk believes is where the "big money fraud" is happening.
We would work with the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which has proven approaches to uncovering health insurance fraud via data analytics leveraging combined resources of Federal, State, and local law enforcement. This team has recovered millions of taxpayer dollars and would have the best ideas on how to effectively expand their approach with an influx of technical talent.
DOGE gains access to Treasury's payment systems which control "payments to Social Security recipients, people entitled to tax refunds, organizations receiving grants, as well as payments to federal workers and government contractors." According to a letter from the Treasury Department published Feb 4, access is "read-only."
Comprehensive analysis of the public, machine-readable, and timely Daily Treasury Statements (DTS) data would be a straightforward way to understand U.S. Government payment flows. From there, data scientists could answer any questions about payments and help inform future strategy. Direct access to such a sensitive system is not necessary and reveals that the objective of access is to interfere with these payments, which risks the integrity of U.S. standing in the global financial system.
DOGE reports on X that it has cancelled $420M of current/impending contracts and two leases in its first 80 hours. No detail of these contracts or leases is provided at the time of reporting.
Rather than rushing to cut the highest dollar values in 80 hours, DOGE could have asked procurement experts within those agencies which contracts were under-performing or under-delivering. Then, the administration could gather the evaluations of existing contracts, issue stop work orders to halt contracts as sunk costs where they are not working, and incorporate performance-based contracting improvements to future iterations and procurement training. IT procurement professionals have been developing improved procurement approaches for years via the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Training Program (DITAP), and this can be replicated across other procurement verticals.
Executive Order 14158 Establishing and Implementing the President’s "Department of Government Efficiency" renames the United States Digital Service the "United States DOGE Service (USDS)" and establishes DOGE as a temporary organization (set to terminate on July 4, 2026). The order directs agencies to provide DOGE with "full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems."
Organizations that existed on day one of the current administration, including the U.S. Digital Service and 18F, had goals that aligned with DOGE's stated goals to improve government efficiency, service delivery, and overall efficiency. These organizations worked with agencies to build trust and momentum and gain an understanding of the root causes of complex problems. Rather than creating a new team with limited capacity and no credibility with agencies, the administration could have worked with these existing teams to go farther, faster to improve government for the American people. But that was never the true goal, was it?
To learn more about how DOGE came to be, please reference the thorough timeline and investigative reporting by the New York Times.