On February 12, 2025, Elon Musk’s Department of Government of Efficiency (DOGE) unveiled its new website. It was promptly hacked.
According to the BBC, DOGE aims to reduce the US national debt, standing at 36 trillion dollars, and save taxpayer money. Despite its name, DOGE is not an official government department but an advisory body that must complete its work by July 2026. Its staff appears to consist mostly of young people with backgrounds in tech while Elon Musk, tech billionaire and a key figure involved in DOGE, has been named as a special government employee and doesn't receive direct payment by the White House.
Critics of DOGE, such as political opponents of President Donald Trump, have accused the body of acting without transparency, spreading misinformation, allowing Musk to overstep
his authority as an unelected official, and conflict with Musk's interests in his private businesses. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Republican director of the Congressional Budget Office, remarked, “They are not going to go into agencies that are doing things they like. They are going into agencies they disagree with.”
In contrast, Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told the BBC that “[DOGE is] a little more untethered to the bureaucracy itself and to the systems that slow processes down around here. I think the lack of parameters is part of what will make them effective.” The specific amount of money DOGE has saved so far is unclear, although Musk has posted “celebratory updates” on spending cuts.
According to Fortune, at least two pages of the new DOGE website were defaced by hackers. The messages “this is a joke of a .gov site” and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro.” appeared on two separate pages of the site. After being first discovered by 404 Media, the pages have since been taken down and are no longer accessible by traditional navigation of the website as of Friday, February 14. Possibly due to its hasty launch, anonymous experts say that DOGE’s website isn’t hosted on government servers, instead drawing on a database accessed by third parties—and this is perhaps how the hackers accessed the website. DOGE.gov also showed signs of incompletion, the “Savings” tab of the page read “Receipts coming soon, no later than Valentine’s day 💘” as of February 14.
As of March 24, 2025, the DOGE website has been mostly restored.