Speaking to an audience at a Saudi-backed investment conference in Miami on Wednesday, Trump said, "On my first day in office... I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge."
According to The Daily Beast, Trump’s statement came just two days after Joshua Fisher, White House Office of Administration Director, submitted a sworn statement in U.S. District Court saying otherwise. Specifically, the sworn statement claims that Musk does not work for DOGE and is not the task force’s administrator.
Instead, he said, the billionaire lieutenant works as a "senior adviser to the president." As such, Musk has "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself."
Trump set up DOGE, which is scheduled to end on July 4, 2026, with a mission of "modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity."
The concept of DOGE emerged in a discussion between him and Musk, where the tech mogul floated the idea of a department for streamlining government efficiency. In August 2024, Musk wrote a post on X saying, "I am willing to serve," along with an AI-generated image of him standing before a lectern furnished with the words "Department of Government Efficiency."
However, per Trump’s DOGE executive, the task force would have an administrator "who shall report to the White House Chief of Staff," though they did not name the administrator.
According to Politico, the White House claims Musk is really just a run-of-the-mill adviser with no direct connection to the DOGE operation and no decision-making power in response to one of the many lawsuits challenging what Musk and DOGE are doing.
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