The White House says that Elon Musk is President Donald Trump's advisor and not the Doge administrator. Musk has been criticized by Democrats for his role to review the expenditure of Federal US agencies.
The White House affirms that billionaire Elon Musk is not the administrator of the Government Efficiency Department (Doge) that is developing a Review in federal agenciesbut he is a senior advisor of President Donald Trump.
Musk's exact role could be key in the legal fight on Doge access to government data, since Trump's government prepares to fire thousands of federal workers.
Defining it as an advisor instead of the person in charge of the daily operations in the Doge could help the government gain a demand that argues that Musk has too much power for someone who has not been chosen or confirmed by the Senate.
The statement was presented on Monday while Trump's government defends the demand of several Democratic states who want to block Musk and the Doge team to access government systems. The plaintiffs claim that Musk is exercising a “practically without control” in violation of the Constitution.
On the other hand, Trump's government argues that Musk “has no real authority to make government decisions for himself,” said Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Administration Office, in judicial documents.
The documents do not appoint the Doge administrator, whose work Musk has defended in publications on his social media platform X and in a public appearance in the White House.
The Doge team has been agency in agency, intervening computer systems, digging in budgets and looking for waste, fraud and abuse, while accumulating the demands that claim that Trump and Doge are violating the law. At least two point to Musk himself.
The federal judge of Tanya Chutkan seemed skeptical at a hearing on Monday when the lawyers of the Department of Justice said that Musk has no formal authority.
“I think they are extending too much. I do not agree with you, ”said Chutkan.