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The official government website for Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” was easily hacked, as its source code included ways to breach its web pages.
The breaches by at least two individuals showcase the recklessness with which DOGE has been ripping through federal agencies and departments. Since President Donald Trump created DOGE through a legally dubious executive order, it has placed unlawful spending freezes on various programs that don’t align with the president’s far right agenda. It has also furloughed thousands of federal workers, ostensibly to cut wasteful spending and weed out supposed “fraud” within the government.
DOGE.gov was created only after Musk was questioned by reporters about where the public could scrutinize DOGE’s work. Musk responded by saying it was being documented on a DOGE account on X as well as on an official government website, which was blank at the time Musk first referenced it.
On Friday, tech website 404 Media reported that the government website could be edited by virtually anyone, as its source code — accessible on most websites through a right-click within a web browser — enabled people to make modifications to it.
Two sources shared with 404 Media just how easy it was to change the website. One of those sources reportedly made alterations to the site themselves.
At least two changes have been documented. In one instance, the site was changed to read, “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN.” The other instance was also critical of the operation — “This is a joke of a .gov site,” that person wrote on DOGE.gov.
“Feels like it was completely slapped together. Tons of errors and details leaked in the page source code,” one of the sources told 404 Media.
In addition to DOGE.gov’s poor security, observers have criticized its unprofessional appearance and the fact that it does not showcase any of DOGE’s actual work in detail.
“This will be unsurprising to anyone who has visited the DOGE.gov website since its inception — it looks like a high schooler could’ve made it,” The New Republic’s Malcolm Ferguson wrote.
The site is “little more than a glorified feed of posts from the official DOGE account on Musk’s own X platform, raising new questions about Musk’s conflicts of interest in running DOGE,” Wired’s David Gilbert observed.
The site has promised to publish supposed “savings” it has made by freezing government spending, pledging to do so “no later than Valentine’s day.” As of noon Eastern Time, those savings have yet to be published.
The site also has a page called the “Unconstitutionality Index,” which, through its title, attempts to show that the rulemaking ability of government agencies outpaces the number of laws for those agencies, insinuating that is a sign of actions outside their authority under the U.S. Constitution.
However, agency rulemaking isn’t unconstitutional if it’s performed in a manner authorized by Congress — when such laws are passed, they legally empower agencies to regulate, which inherently means there will be many more rules than there are laws.
Daily Beast reporter Sean Craig has also pointed out that this “index” wasn’t created by DOGE, but rather is an analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Both Musk and President Donald Trump have suggested that DOGE has uncovered multiple instances of “fraud.” But they have failed to provide actual examples, pointing to examples of legal government spending that they disagree with instead. This spending was authorized by Congress and signed into law by presidential administrations, including likely during Trump’s first term.
Among those who have pointed out that DOGE’s claims of fraud are incorrect are federal judges who have placed holds on DOGE’s spending freezes.
“The Defendants [the Trump administration] now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud” through DOGE’s work, U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote in an order earlier this week. “But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols — a judicial appointee of Trump’s — also noted that lawyers for the government couldn’t justify putting 2,000 federal workers on leave “beyond asserting without any record support that USAID writ large was possibly engaging in ‘corruption and fraud.’”
DOGE’s work itself is highly circumspect, especially Musk’s involvement in government affairs. Musk has reportedly received “special government employee” status from the Trump administration. That designation requires that individuals do not oversee matters in which they have a financial stake — a requirement that Musk is clearly flouting, as he has billions of dollars in government contracts and his role at DOGE grants him oversight over agencies that have previously investigated his companies.
At least three staffers on Musk’s DOGE team have faced widespread backlash after investigations into their online footprints uncovered posts promoting racism, white nationalism, and violence against women.
The first staffer to make headlines, Marko Elez, resigned from DOGE after his racist posts were made public. But after Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump came to his defense, Musk reinstated Elez to his position.
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