Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's extra-governmental Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was served a lawsuit Monday just minutes after President Donald Trump's inauguration.
The 30-page complaint, brought by public interest law firm National Security Counselors, alleges that DOGE—which shares an acronym with the ticker of Dogecoin, Musk's favorite meme coin—is illegally operating as a federal advisory committee. In doing so, DOGE is operating in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act's rules on hiring, disclosures, and other matters, according to the lawsuit.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act is a federal law that oversees roughly 1,000 government-wide advisory committees. It calls for each advisory committee, or any groups that dispense advice to the president, to have a list of members that is “fairly balanced in terms of point of view and represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee,” in addition to a charter with clear practices and transparent public record processes.
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However, DOGE does not meet those requirements, despite operating as an advisory committee, lawyers alleged in the complaint.
DOGE's ranks are heavily composed of tech experts and others without sufficient experience to advise on federal government matters, the lawsuit alleges.
“DOGE’s stacked membership, far from being fairly balanced, reveals that only one viewpoint is represented: that of ‘small-government crusaders’ with backgrounds in either the tech industry or Republican politics,” the NSC's lawyers said in the complaint. “This shortcoming renders DOGE’s membership imbalanced and unfit for the function it has been directed to perform.”
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Furthermore, the initiative's leaders have not filed their charter with the “relevant federal agencies and Congressional committees,” the complaint alleges, meaning they are not yet authorized to take any kind of action to cut the federal deficit.
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional detail.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
