National Design Studio

In the middle of summer 2025, DOGE found itself in a minor crisis. Elon Musk had left, Steve Davis had spurred a civil war within the organization, and embittered agency heads were starting to assert more power over the DOGE members embedded in their agency, including firing the ones they didn’t like. In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Joe Gebbia had pitched the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on a new design direction for DOGE, using “Mad Men”-style presentation boards to promote a plan for a refurbished National Parks website among others. As the article wryly noted, “Susie listened, There were no major decisions made.”

But, it clearly worked. In late August, Trump signed EO 14338, establishing a new office of the National Design Studio within the White House, charged with defining standards for the look and functionality of federal websites. Within a few weeks, Joe Gebbia was named as the first Chief Design Officer of the NDS. Despite this new role, the NDS seems to be following theconfigs: same playbook as DOGE, with the executive order definining a similar Temporary Organization that can be used to hire Special Government Employees without them having to quit their regular work or worry about ethics declarations. Is it just DOGE 2.0?

And, what is this about websites? Since its launch, DOGE has created several websites that have followed the same template: a black background, large fonts, big videos or animated images on hover, all of which are generally on a single page. These included:

• doge.gov, launched 2/13/2025, was the first DOGE website with an embedded Twitter module. It has since been expanded to several pages with a backing database, but it still doesn’t support pagination or site search.
• trumpcard.gov, launched on 6/13/2025, is an informational site for the new proposed “Trump Card” gold visa, which would let people skip the lines for immigration visas by paying $5 million in fees. It is a single-page site with bold text and an email sign-up form for people who might be interested.
• usai.gov, launched 8/14/2025, is a GSA site to promote new partnerships between the agency and three different AI companies to make it easier for agencies to embed AI within their operations. It features large bold fonts, big images and an email contact form, and it also is 4 pages in total. This is the project that Bee Elvy and Alison Childs were reportedly working on.

The National Design Studio has since launched its own branded sites

• ndstudio.gov, launched 8/21/2025, is a landing page for the National Design Studio. It features a single page of chunky bold text on a black background and a contact form for people to submit resumes to.
• americabydesign.gov, launched 8/21/2025, was created to promote the “America by Design” initiative of the National Design Studio. This includes the oft-repeated quote from Joe Gebbia that government websites should offer an “Apple Store”-like experience. This site is a single page of large bold text, with a header video of a waving American flag. It also includes an email sign-up form.
• trumpcard.gov v2, launched 9/20/2025, a revised version of the original Trump Card site, it is a single page of bold text with videos of eagles and an email sign-up form.
• safedc.gov, launched 10/29/2025, is a recruitment site for people who want to do federal policing in DC. It features a single page of large bold text on a black background with a large (possibly AI-generated) picture of Trump on patrol with agents, links to job listings on USA Jobs and an email sign-up form. Weirdly, the NDS header also includes a clock.
• genesis.energy.gov, launched 11/25/2025, is a site promoting a new “Genesis Mission” at the Department of Energy to use AI more in scientific research. It features a single page of large bold text on a black background, many videos and animated images, as well as an email sign-up form. Posting about it from his account, Edward Coristine said the site took 3 weeks to make.