Elon Musk’s DOGE is facing its first legal challenge hours after Trump’s inauguration

The first lawsuit challenging billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is expected to be filed in federal court Monday hours after President Trump he took the oath of office.

A 30-page complaint obtained by Fox Business in advance of the filing accuses DOGE of violating certain public disclosure requirements in federal law. The lawsuit, filed by the public interest law firm National Security Counselors, was first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump has tasked Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with leading DOGE in its quest to identify government waste, fraud and abuse, and to advise the White House on how to cut spending. Musk has set an ambitious $2 trillion spending cut goal for his nonprofit agency, which has hired staff at his company SpaceX’s D.C. offices and reportedly held preliminary meetings with representatives from dozens of federal agencies to root out the waste, according to the outlet.

But DOGE was not created by Congress and its powers, if any, are undefined. The lawsuit says DOGE should be considered a “federal advisory committee” and, as such, is required by a law known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) to have “fairly balanced” representation, record its meetings and open them to the public. , and submit a charter to Congress. It is not clear whether DOGE has complied with these requirements.

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“DOGE is not exempt from FACA’s requirements,” the lawsuit states. “All DOGE meetings, including those held via electronic media, must be open to the public.”

Musk and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ requests for comment.

In the author’s text of the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that DOGE will be “[u]such as government commissions or advisory boards,” which appear to indicate that they do not intend their work to be subject to FACA’s requirements, according to the lawsuit.

Economist Sam Hammond of the Foundation for American Innovation, which supports DOGE’s mission, told the Washington Post that Musk’s effort is likely exempt from FACA requirements since the body will primarily implement ideas within the executive branch and the White House.

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“DOGE is not a federal advisory board because DOGE doesn’t really exist. DOGE is a branding exercise, shorthand for the Trump administration’s reform efforts,” Hammond said.

However, national security advisers insist that DOGE fits the legal definition of a federal advisory board and that the body does not include representatives of federal bureaucrats whose jobs could be at risk if proposed cuts to government agencies are implemented.

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The lawsuit names as lead co-plaintiffs Jerald Lentini, a local Connecticut elected official and national security adviser attorney who applied to join DOGE, and Joshua Erlich, owner of an employment law firm that regularly represents federal employees. Erlich also applied to work for DOGE and stated in his application that the body “currently does not have an individual to speak on behalf of civil servants and their interests,” according to the lawsuit.

Citing reports in the New York Times and Washington Post, the lawsuit names 17 people associated with DOGE, including entrepreneurs Marc AndreessenBaris Akis and Antonio Gracias.

“No member of DOGE is a federal employee or represents the perspective of federal employees,” the lawsuit states.

Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, said in a statement that FACA has broad bipartisan support and that every American should be in favor of DOGE operating transparently.

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“This is not about sour grapes. This is not about people being sued because they weren’t picked. These are people being sued because no one like them was picked, and as a result, no one will be in the room to make sure that DOGE understands the critical perspectives that they would wanted to provide,” McClanahan said.

“No one disputes that there is an enormous amount of wasteful spending in the federal government. Our only concern is that DOGE, as currently constituted, does not have the expertise to understand how its recommendations will backfire if it pushes federal workers out without understanding why the Job of Government is not corporate business and all referrals without that perspective are doomed to failure.”