Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency emerges with tech modernization mission

US President Donald Trump has re-named the US Digital Service the Department of Government Efficiency and given it a mission to modernize government technology.

The Department (DOGE) is a pet project of Elon Musk, who in a November 2024 article described its mission as “to cut the federal government down to size” through “regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” Trump enthusiastically endorsed that vision and promised that creating DOGE would be one of his early actions once he resumed the presidency and that Musk would lead it.

True his word, on Monday US Time issued an Executive Order creating the agency.

Cost-cutting, however, is not explicitly mentioned in the order, which instead gives DOGE the job of “Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity.”

DOGE’s tech-centric mission is reflected in the fact it will inhabit the US Digital Service (USDS), which pursues a mission to “deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.”

DOGE’s first order of business is to “commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems.”

The Executive Order is a little confusing as while it calls for USDS to be renamed DOGE, it mentions requirements for USDS staff and activities – among them the creation of the post of USDS Administrator in the Executive Office of the President, reporting to the White House Chief of Staff.

That Administrator will head the “U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization” that will reside within DOGE/USDS and “be dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda.” The temporary org will terminate on July 4, 2026.

The USDS Administrator will “work with Agency Heads to promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization.”

Those Agency Heads must ensure USDS “has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.”

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The Order also outlines a requirement for every government agency to create a “DOGE Team” that will work on implementing Trump’s “DOGE Agenda”. That section of the Order makes no mention of tech, so could perhaps be an element of DOGE’s wider cost-cutting mission.

The Order suggests DOGE will focus on improving government tech and applications, with interoperability of special interest.

Like most large organizations, government agencies often develop sprawling IT estates and find themselves locked into suppliers, operating silos, and keeping things running with the digital equivalents of string and wire.

Given the Federal Government is a colossal consumer of business technology, DOGE will likely find poor procurement practises and wasteful spending, sub-optimal systems, clunky apps that make workers jump through hoops, and all the other horrors that accrete over time.

How DOGE will use the info it gathers about the state of Federal tech is not explained by the Order. Musk and Trump’s past remarks about cutting wasteful spending suggest tech vendors may have to defend some deals. DOGE’s focus on improved productivity hints at the chance for vendors to win new work, and for Federal Government technologists to see their to-do lists lengthen.

DOGE ran into trouble even before the Executive Order was published, as a collection of public interest advocacy groups filed a lawsuit [PDF] that argues the body doesn’t meet the transparency requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. ®