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- The White House still won’t say who is the DOGE administrator.
- Donald Trump tapped Elon Musk to lead DOGE.
- But Musk is not the DOGE administrator or even a DOGE employee.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday refused multiple chances to answer a question that has hung over the White House’s DOGE office: Who is in charge?
President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order created a DOGE administrator to lead the rebranded US Digital Service. Under penalty of perjury, a White House official recently declared in a court filing that Elon Musk is not the administrator or a DOGE employee. It remains unclear if there is a DOGE administrator.
Leavitt, amid a back and forth with reporters, seemed to suggest that there is an administrator even if their name is not publicly available. She also said Musk isn’t the administrator.
“No, Elon Musk is a special government employee,” Leavitt said, when pressed on the world’s richest man’s status.
“There are career officials at DOGE, there are political appointees at DOGE. I’m not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium,” she said. “I’m happy to follow up and provide that to you. But we have been incredibly transparent about the way DOGE has been working.”
Leavitt also said Trump “asked Elon Musk to oversee DOGE.”
Business Insider followed up with the White House and a DOGE spokesperson. They did not immediately respond to our questions.
The White House has said Musk is a special government employee, a category of federal workers created to bring officials with expertise into the civil service part-time. Musk is also a senior advisor to the president.
Trump and Musk have blurred the line over the extent of Musk’s power. BI previously reported that Musk’s job title is “unlisted.”
Musk previously hosted a DOGE update with members of Congress on X, the social media platform he also owns. Trump also told reporters he asked Musk what type of people DOGE had hired. During a recent appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Musk wielded a chainsaw on stage. His talk was titled “DOGE update.”
During the briefing, Leavitt told reporters that Musk will attend Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“Elon will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE’s efforts and how all the cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud, and abuse at their respective agencies,” Leavitt said.
It’s not just journalists asking about the position. On Monday, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly asked a Justice Department attorney if there was a DOGE administrator.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” the counsel responded, according to Lawfare.
The Trump executive order dictates that the administrator answers to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Twenty-one civil service employees who resigned en masse on Tuesday addressed their letter to Wiles.
In a footnote, they wrote that addressed their letter to Wiles because, “No one has been identified internally as the official Administrator or leader of the United States DOGE Service.”
