Elon Musk’s DOGE faces lawsuit as Donald Trump is inaugurated

A sweeping federal cost-cutting effort led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Ministry of Government Efficiency (DOGE), faces multiple lawsuits, with the trial coinciding with President Trump’s January initiation.

A suit, submitted Monday by a public law firm called National Security Counselors, DOGE claims to act as a federal advisory committee. That puts the initiative at odds with a law called the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA, which regulates the functions and transparency of federal advisory committees, according to the group.

FACA requires those groups to be “fairly balanced in terms of the views represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit was filed shortly after noon Eastern time in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, National Security Counselors told CBS MoneyWatch.

The law requires that advisory committees be “objective and accessible to the public.” according to to the US General Services Administration.

A coalition representing veterans, health professionals, teachers and other groups also filed suit against DOGE on Monday, citing FACA and asking a court to block DOGE’s activities until it complies with the law.

“The question every American should be asking is, ‘What are they hiding?'” Skye Perryman, executive director of Democracy Forward, a legal organization representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “DOGE must not be allowed to operate in the shadows without the transparency, oversight and opportunity for public participation required by law of a federal department.”

Neither the Trump campaign nor Elon Musk immediately responded to a request for comment. It is expected that Ramaswamy does steps away from DOGE as he begins a campaign for Ohio governor later this month.

DOGE breaking the law?

DOGE, which is not an official government agency, was tasked by Trump with drafting recommendations to reduce federal spending, with billionaires Musk and Ramaswamy saying they aimed to cut around 500 billion in annual expenses. The lawsuit alleges that DOGE so far appears to have largely appointed three types of people to work on its efforts: tech industry executives, people associated with the Trump campaign and his former administration, and employees of Musk or Ramaswamy’s.

The lawsuit alleges that as a result, DOGE is in violation of FACA because “not a single member of DOGE is a federal employee or represents the perspective of federal employees, despite evidence that DOGE intends to make recommendations regarding federal employment practices and ways to reduce the size of the federal workforce.”

It also alleges that DOGE is violating the law’s mandate that advisory committee meetings be open to the public, noting that Musk and Ramaswamy have held private meetings with various elected officials as well as with tech executives.

“No one disputes that there is a tremendous amount of wasteful spending in the federal government,” Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors, said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. “Our only concern is that DOGE, as currently constituted, lacks the expertise to understand how its recommendations will backfire if it pushes federal workers out without understanding why they are there in the first place.

He added: “Government work is not corporate work and any recommendations without this perspective are doomed to failure.”

The plaintiffs in the case include two men who submitted applications to be employed by DOGE. One, Jerald Lentini, is an attorney for the National Security Counselors, while the other, Joshua Erlich, is an attorney who often represents federal employees and could represent their views, the lawsuit notes. None of them have heard back from DOGE about their applications.

“Complainant concludes that, upon information and belief, neither Lentini nor Erlich, nor anyone similarly situated, who would represent the perspectives of federal employees (including national security employees), labor unions, or advocates for accountability and transparency, to DOGE,” the lawsuit claims.