The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a government-efficiency body established by executive order under the Trump administration in January 2025 (Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/) and led in its initial phase by Elon Musk. It applied AI to federal contract analysis, workforce reduction, and administrative streamlining. By May 2026, Reuters described DOGE as defunct (Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/grok-falls-flat-washington-undercutting-spacexs-ai-growth-story-2026-05-21/).
AI uses and deployments
DOGE used internal AI tools to review and recommend termination of Department of Veterans Affairs contracts. ProPublica reported on June 6, 2025, under the headline "DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI to Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts," that the tools reportedly produced errors that affected contract decisions (Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-ai-veterans-affairs-contracts).
DOGE also expanded use of Grok, the model from Musk's xAI, for analysis of federal data. Reuters reported this in a May 23, 2025 exclusive headlined "Musk's DOGE expanding his Grok AI in US government, raising conflict concerns" (Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-doge-expanding-his-grok-ai-us-government-raising-conflict-concerns-2025-05-23/).
A February 11, 2025 MIT Technology Review analysis, "Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets?", examined whether AI tools are sophisticated enough for the budget-reduction task DOGE envisions, framing the question in cautionary terms (Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/11/can-ai-help-doge-slash-government-budgets/).
DOGE also used OpenAI's ChatGPT to screen National Endowment for the Humanities grants: staffers prompted the model with "Does the following relate at all to DEI?" and adopted its outputs without substantive review, cancelling more than 1,400 grants the model flagged. In a May 2026 ruling in American Council of Learned Societies v. NEH, a federal court found the cancellations unconstitutional, holding that the AI-generated classifications "are the Government's own for constitutional purposes" (Source: techpolicy.press).
The Grok push produced limited lasting adoption. Reuters reported on May 21, 2026 that Grok was seeing minimal adoption in the US government and lagged far behind OpenAI and other rivals, and that DOGE — by then described as a now-defunct entity — had told Department of Homeland Security officials to use Grok even though it had not been approved for the purpose (Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/grok-falls-flat-washington-undercutting-spacexs-ai-growth-story-2026-05-21/). Separately, Nextgov reported on February 10, 2026 that a Trump administration nutrition website directed users to Grok, following backlash over the chatbot's generation of sexualized images (Source: https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2026/02/trumps-nutrition-website-directs-users-elon-musks-grok/411323/).
Status and wind-down
DOGE's operational footprint receded over late 2025 and early 2026. Federal News Network reported in September 2025 that DOGE officials no longer took up residence in the General Services Administration's headquarters and that an agency watchdog would review whether DOGE-led projects improved efficiency (Source: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2025/09/agency-watchdog-will-see-if-doge-led-projects-improved-efficiency/). By May 2026, Reuters reporting on Grok's standing in Washington referred to DOGE as a now-defunct entity (Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/grok-falls-flat-washington-undercutting-spacexs-ai-growth-story-2026-05-21/).
Oversight and controversy
The use of Grok (xAI) within DOGE raised conflict-of-interest questions, because Musk simultaneously led xAI and DOGE. Reuters characterized this as a conflict concern in its reporting on the expanded deployment (Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-doge-expanding-his-grok-ai-us-government-raising-conflict-concerns-2025-05-23/).
The VA-contract reporting raised questions about accuracy, describing AI deployed in consequential government decisions without adequate accuracy guardrails (Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-ai-veterans-affairs-contracts). DOGE's AI use was also tied to workforce- and contract-reduction targets, with the tools serving as both the instrument of cuts and part of the justification for them.
The NEH grant cancellations produced judicial oversight of DOGE's AI use: the May 2026 ruling in ACLS v. NEH attributed the ChatGPT classifications to the government itself and found the resulting cancellations unconstitutional (Source: techpolicy.press).
Congressional scrutiny of the Grok thread continued after DOGE's wind-down. In March 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed the Pentagon over its decision to grant xAI access to classified networks, citing Grok's history of harmful outputs and potential national-security risk (Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/16/warren-presses-pentagon-over-decision-to-grant-xai-access-to-classified-networks/).
Relationships
- deployed-by: xAI (Grok), internal AI tools.
- led-by: Elon Musk.
- related: Federal AI Adoption — Patterns and Tensions, Government AI Procurement, xAI, Grok (xAI).