DOGE Track

“IT Modernization”

In the January 20th Executive Order “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’” that established DOGE partially by renaming the US Digital Service, there was a section that described the formation and structure of DOGE teams that would operate at each federal agency

(c) DOGE Teams. In consultation with USDS, each Agency Head shall establish within their respective Agencies a DOGE Team of at least four employees, which may include Special Government Employees, hired or assigned within thirty days of the date of this Order. Agency Heads shall select the DOGE Team members in consultation with the USDS Administrator. Each DOGE Team will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. Agency Heads shall ensure that DOGE Team Leads coordinate their work with USDS and advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President’s DOGE Agenda.

Despite the description, DOGE initially used IT Modernization as a cover for its activities to get a foot in the door, so that it could start its projects of spending control or eliminating agencies.

However, DOGE has undertaken some IT modernization projects:

  • Government Wide Email Server (GWES) the first project launched by DOGE was a system for emailing every federal employee. This was the underlying system for the Fork in the Road offer as well as the later Five Things email.
  • The DOGE Website the DOGE website was launched in early January as a placeholder site. Over time, DOGE added more functionality that represented its perspective on what was important. First, they added an organizational chart, which was backed by a poorly secured and easily hacked database. Then, they added a Wall of Receipts for canceled contracts where the math didn’t add up. Lately, they have expanded it to include regulatory savings that are actually tallies of savings to businesses instead of the public.
  • Automating RIFs DOGE has also assisted in automating the layoff process for reducing personnel
  • Digital Retirement In late February, one of the cofounders of AirBnb named Joe Gebbia announced he had started on a project to fully digitize retirement processing at OPM and replace the existing paper-based processes. In May, they promoted it as a “cornerstone of the DOGE effort”. Unfortunately, it might also be a case of DOGE taking credit for work that had already been in progress for years.
  • AI Assistants DOGE has also rolled out or accelerated the use of AI assistants within several agencies. More importantly, it has been using AI to suggest regulations for removal.
  • Websites Perhaps the most notable IT Modernization work lately by DOGE has been launching various websites, with most of them created by the newer NDS .
Date Event
1/08/25
Source
The leader of the Trump transition team for the Treasury Department sends an email requesting that Thomas Krause be incuded on the “day 1 team, to lead on Fiscal Services modernization efforts.”
February 2025
2/XX/25
Source
Unnamed engineers working for DOGE within OPM reportedly used Meta’s Llama AI model running locally on OPM servers to analyze responses to the “Fork in the Road” resignation offer.
2/06/25
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The Washington Post reports that DOGE is feeding Department of Education data into an unidentified AI system hosted in Microsoft Azure.
2/13/25
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DOGE announces that its website is now live. The site is launched with an organizational chart and tweets from the DOGE X account. It is presented as white text on a black background.
2/13/25
Source
A story on a proposal to use AI at the Department of Education lists several DOGE staffers identified there within the last few weeks.
 Alexandra Beynon, Brooks Morgan, Adam Ramada
2/18/25
Source
A custom AI chatbot based on xAI’s Grok model was discovered hosted on subdomain on the doge.gov site. It is linked to Christopher Stanley.
2/19/25
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says only one person from DOGE is “looking at an outdated IT system, that’s all they’re doing.” Given that Marko Elez had resigned, this is likely a reference to Ryan Wunderly.
2/20/25
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In emails with USDA staff to identify climate-related terms to look for and cancel in grants, Gavin Kliger also alludes to DOGE developing LLM models that would analyze grant descriptions in response to a USDA staffer suggestion to use AI more.
2/21/25
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The USADF general cousel revokes their participation in the Memorandum of Understanding based on it being created under false pretenses that DOGE would be assisting the agency in “IT modernization.”
2/27/25
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Joe Gebbia announces on his social media account that he will be working on a project at OPM to modernize retirement processing and move it away from paper records currently stored at a cave in Pennsylvania.
March 2025
3/XX/25
Source
Kyle Schutt and Edward Coristine repeatedly pressure staff over the next two months at DHS to use Grok, a chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI, despite the fact it had not been approved for use in the agency. A DHS spokesperson later denied the allegations.
c.3/03/25
Source
DOE staff (mostly from DOGE) meet exclusively with DOGE staff from both OPM and GSA to discuss DOI’s data centers, cloud infrastructure and software licenses.
 Riccardo Biasini, Derek Geissler, Tyler Hassen, Greg Hogan, Katrine Trampe
3/19/25
Source
GSA hosts a deep-background media briefing to demo its GSAi tool with invitations sent to reporters from Bloomberg, The Atlantic, and Fox among other media organizations.
3/25/25
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Tech staffers and contractors noticed a new DOGE staffer, Sahil Lavingia, was pushing code to a repo in the VA’s Github instance. He also appeared to be using an AI tool to write code. This later turns out to be code that is reviewing contracts to be terminated.
 Justin Fulcher, Jon Koval, Sahil Lavingia, Payton Rehling, Christopher Roussos, Cary Volpert
3/28/25
Source
Reports emerge that DOGE is planning to rewrite the entire COBOL codebase for Social Security to Java in months using generative AI
3/28/25
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The Deputy CIO for Infrastructure/IT at SSA acknowledges an increased number of network crashes due to a newly-introduced fraud checking system created and rushed into production by DOGE.
April 2025
4/07/25
Source
Newly-appointed director of CMS, Dr. Mehmet Oz, suggests replacing front-line healthcare workers with AI avatars for cost savings.
4/07/25
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The Post confirms with multiple source that Social Security’s website has crashed repeatedly in recent weeks, with outages ranging from 20 minutes to an entire day. They speculate this is due to the introduction of an expanded fraud check system created by DOGE that wasn’t tested for scalability before being deployed.
4/08/25
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Employees at the EPA report being told by Trump-appointed officials that DOGE was using AI to monitor communication tools (including Microsoft Teams) for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language.
c.4/10/25
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Scott Langmack sends a message to HUD staff announcing that “I’d like to share with you that Chris Sweet has joined the HUD DOGE team with the title of special assistant, although a better title might be ‘AI computer programming quant analyst.’” (fuzz: Date is unspecified, just sometime earlier in April)
c.4/15/25
Source
Christopher Sweet is reported to be using an AI model to analyze HUD regulations and suggest revisions. These are presented to HUD staff for review in a large spreadsheet. It is not clear how the AI system is making these determinations. (fuzz: Date is unspecified, just sometime earlier in April)
4/16/25
Source
Three DOGE staffers – Marko Elez, Edward Coristine and Joe Gebbia – are reported to be working with staff from DHS, the State Department and USCIS on implementing an application process for a $5 Million “Gold Card” visa. It is unclear what agencies they are working for and how this partnership has been structured.
 Edward Coristine, Marko Elez, Joe Gebbia
4/17/25
Source
Social Security introduces a new AI chatbot to help with general agency tasks but built from general OpenAI models and not trained on SSA data or content.
c.4/20/25
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In a meeting between HUD and DOGE, Jacob Altik says they are planning to use Christopher Sweet’s AI model analyzing regulations at HUD to review the entire Code of Federal regulations for regulations to review. (fuzz: Date is unspecified, just sometime earlier in April)
 Jacob Altik, Christopher Sweet
c.4/30/25
Source
Social Security introduces a new AI-based agent for handling phone calls to 350 field offices in the Southeast and Northeast regions. It frustrates many users attempting to reach an actual person for assistance.
May 2025
5/07/25
Source
Representatives from OpenAI are reported to have met with several DOGE associates at the FDA to discuss using AI for drug evaluation work.
5/09/25
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OPM reports it will rolling out a Online Retirement Application (ORA) system which replaces the paper-based system for federal departments served by the National Finance Center and Interior Business Center. This was a program originally started in the Biden Administration that is being accelerated without pilot programs.
5/23/25
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Reuters reports that DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt and Edward Coristine have attempted to gain access to DHS employee emails in recent months and ordered staff to train AI to identify communications suggesting an employee is not “loyal” to Trump’s political agenda. Given earlier reports, the AI in question is like xAi’s “Grok” AI system.
5/29/25
Source
During a briefing to the Ways and Means Committee representatives and staff, DOGE members say they are very excited about the possibility of using AI to interface with and modernize legacy COBOL systems at the IRS.
June 2025
6/02/25
Source
In the budget for next year, the White House requests $45 million total for DOGE, forecasting 150 employees would work for the agency. From this amount, it allocates $10 million for a “software modernization initiative,” with $35 million being provided to DOGE through reimbursement from agencies where DOGE staff will be embedded.
6/02/25
Source
NIH staff are forced to send all grant proposals through an AI tool that looks for topics banned by the Trump administration. This includes topics like “DEI, transgender, China, or vaccine hesitancy.” Staff are also ordered to check that medical research grants aren’t being awarded to certain schools like Harvard or Columbia which are seen as enemies of Trump.
6/06/25
Source
ProPublica analyzes public code by Sahil Lavingia for an AI-powered tool to evaluate contracts at the VA and determine which ones are “munchable” (meaning they should be canceled). The analysis finds the AI was given poor instructions and lacks context to correctly make these decisions.
6/13/25
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DOGE staffers working with the Department of Commerce launch 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.
6/25/25
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Democratic Congressman Mark Takano sends an angry letter to Secretary Collins of the VA demanding answers about DOGE activities including if they have installed spyware on agency machines, if they have been piloting AI, and if they have accessed medical records. He also asks for detailed information on DOGE staff at the agency.
July 2025
c.7/01/25
Source
Christopher Sweet participates in a meeting at HUD to discuss more permanent hosting options for the AI deregulation tool which had been running internally. This could be the precursor to providing it as a service to other agencies. (fuzz: Meeting reported as in week of 2025-06-30)
7/07/25
Source
Thomas Shedd announces that after a review of 7200 websites in the federal government, GSA is recommending that 332 of those should be eliminated. These cuts are not evenly distributed (the SBA will eliminate half of its websites). This initiative dates back to 2023 OMB guidance for the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, so this is not a DOGE-created project, but some of the websites and pages are for programs targeted by DOGE.
7/10/25
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The Pentagon releases a memo calling for “drone dominance,” including increasing manufacturing, embedding drones within armed units and assuming more risk in developing new technologies. The memo is signed by Pete Hegseth, but it was disributed with a DOGE Controlled tag and revealed the appointment of Owen West as the chief point of contact. This is a marked departure from DOGE’s spending control and personnel reduction efforts at the agency.
August 2025
8/01/25
Source
The SEC announces the creation of an AI task force and the creation of a new Chief AI Officer role helmed by a career SEC staffer.
8/04/25
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In a report about DOGE’s continued work on OPM’s Online Retirement Application (ORA) continuing to move ahead, Politico identifies DOGE staff that are working on the project under Joe Gebbia.
 Akash Bobba, Yat Choi, Joe Gebbia, James Sullivan, Andrew Vilcsak
8/13/25
Source
In a call hosted by the US CIO, DOGE team lead Scott Langmack shares info on an AI tool named SweetREX Deregulation AI Plan Builder developed by Christoper Sweet to review agency regulations for elimination. This is the same tool highlighted by DOGE in a presentation to the White House earlier in the month. Agency representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of State, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are on the call. Steve Davis also was on the call despite having left DOGE and asked if the tool could be open-sourced.
 Steve Davis, Scott Langmack, Christopher Sweet
8/14/25
Source
  • usai.gov General Services Administration
GSA launches a new website usai.gov to promote new partnerships between the agency and three different AI companies. The goal is to make it easier for agencies to embed AI internally. The site 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.
8/21/25
Source
President Trump signs EO 14338, which creates the new National Design Studio within the EOP and tasks it with centralizing control over design across the federal government. Joe Gebbia is subsequently named the new Chief Design Officer. Similar to DOGE’s structure, the NDS contains a temporary organization within that can be used for hiring Special Government Employees (SGEs) to work for the government on a volunteer basis.
8/21/25
Source
To accompany the creation of the National Design Studio, the organization launches the site ndstudio.gov to promote the group. The site features a single page of chunky bold text as well as an email signup form and a place to submit resumes.
8/21/25
Source
The National Design Studio also launches americabydesign.gov to promote the America by Design initiative mentioned in EO 14338. 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.
September 2025
9/09/25
Source
All employees at HHS and its subsidiary agencies receive an email informing them that ChatGPT will be rolled out to the entire agency immediately. The rollout is being managed by Clark Minor, and the email states that the deployment is secure enough that agency staff can even include procurement-sensitive data and “non-sensitive” PII into the chats, although sensitive PII, classified informatio and other confidential information should not be shared.
9/20/25
Sources
The Trump administration revamps the “Gold Card Visa” site that was originally launched in June. The visa now will cost $1 million and be an expedited EB-1 or EB-2 visa; the original proposal has been rebranded as the platinum card, which will be “coming soon.” The legality of this program still remains wildly unclear and demand is inflated because sign-up is through a public web form. This website is the first public work of recently-formed National Design Studio, although the previous version of the site was built by DOGE too.
9/24/25
Source
The New York Times reports on how the DOGE-led staffing cuts and technology changes have led to poor service, low morale and increased wait times for the public. In many field offices, the average wait for an appointment is now six weeks.
October 2025
10/10/25
Sources
Working with the White House and HHS, the National Design Studio launches the TrumpRX to promote a forthcoming initiative from the White House to cap certain drug prices for private payers. This is the fourth website to bear the National Design Studio credit, and like the others it is a single-page site with expandable accordion elements of text and an email signup form.
10/24/25
Source
The Trump Administration registers the domain techforce.gov and later launches a password-protected site with branding for the National Design Studio on it.
10/29/25
Sources
The National Design Studio launches a new website safedc.gov for the admnistration’s new DC task force. 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.
10/31/25
Source
The DOGE team at the Pentagon is reported to be leading efforts to change how the military procures and uses drones and is expected to submit a report to leadership in the coming weeks. One of their goals is reportedly to acquire 30,000 drones in the next few months before ramping up further. The team’s work is being led by Owen West, who also co-authored a drone memo in June.
November 2025
11/25/25
Sources
The Department of Energy launches a new “Genesis Mission” to heavily use AI tools for scientific research. The website for this endeavor is created by the National Design Studio and features the classic hallmarks of their work: bold fonts on a black background with animations all on a single page with no navigation and an email signup form. According to Edward Coristine’s twitter account, this page took 3 weeks to make.
December 2025
12/08/25
Source
Sahil Lavingia shares a revision to the IRS homepage’s look and feel which makes it look more like LinkedIn or similar. Design critics note that it has 3 different Sign In buttons, which Sahil states it will save the user time depending on where their cursor is.
12/10/25
Source
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee send a letter to Scott Bessent asking for more information about DOGE’s possible use of AI to interface with and modernize COBOL code running at the IRS.
12/10/25
Sources
Trump officially launches the trumpcard.gov website, which has been modified to now accept more formal online applications and a $15,000 processing fee. This change was presumably made by the National Design Studio, who did the last revamp of the site originally developed by DOGE. More importantly, it now has a more detailed signup form that promises payment processing of the $15,000 processing fee as well. With this change, NDS has added a second page.
12/14/25
Source
The National Design Studio launches merrychristmas.gov, a site for the America Bt Design to highlight 12 days of “GovDesign History.” In a marked departure from typical NDS style, this page features smaller text on a white background, snow that can be toggled on and off and a different URL for each day as well as a page linking to NORAD’s Santa tracker. These pages meant the site comprises 14 pages in total (the largest for any NDS site)
12/15/25
Source
The National Design Studio and OPM launch techforce.gov, a new site recruiting technical staff for a 2-year term to work on technical projects within agencies, a model that sounds similar to 18F and USDS, which were respectively completely destroyed and hollowed out by DOGE. The site features the typical design of NDS websites – a single page of large bold fonts on a black background with accordion elements to expand information. It also features AI images of a figure with a computer monitor head.
12/16/25
Source
Acting in his role as CIO for the Treasury, Sam Corcos approves spending up to $1.5 million on up to 3000 licenses for ChatGPT at the agency, with more than $500,000 already obligated.
12/17/25
Sources
The National Design Studio launches another single-page site trumpaccounts.gov in cooperation with the US Treasury. This is to promote a program of special investment accounts that was passed by Congress but presented as if it’s a result of Trump’s personal largesse. It conveys a softer tone than many other of their sites, but still sticks to the same convention of a single page of text, with a FAQ presented as expandable accordions and a form to sign up for a mailing list.
1/09/26
Sources
The National Design Studio launches realfood.gov with HHS. Evoking more of a nostalgic and warm tone rather than the technocratic darkness of some prior sites, it is still a one-page site with large bold text, expandable accordions but now also with some scrolling animation.
c.1/10/26
Source
After GSA officials raised concerns that the xAI Grok model was a safety risk because it was too syncophantic and susceptible to manipulation, Josh Gruenbaum defends the inclusion of the company’s models into the government’s USAi site. Susie Wiles is satisfied by his explanation, but usage of the model by government agencies has been low, except in some cases where security testers have needed to simulate a bad actor.
c.1/10/26
Source
After GSA officials raised concerns that the xAI Grok model was a safety risk because it was too syncophantic and susceptible to manipulation, Josh Gruenbaum defends the inclusion of the company’s models into the government’s USAi site. Susie Wiles is satisfied by his explanation, but usage of the model by government agencies has been low, except in some cases where security testers have needed to simulate a bad actor.
1/23/26
Source
Speaking in a podcast interview, Joe Gebbia reports that the National Design Studio is working to revise every government website, adding that “look like they’re from the mid-90s.” He also states that the NDS is going to deliver a refresh of some existing websites by July 4, 2026 and that the team will eventually consist of approximately 15 engineers and 15 designers and is currently employing brilliant veterans of Silicon Valley.
1/28/26
Source
In a post on LinkedIn, Amanda Scales announces she has returned to a role at OPM, overseeing the recruitment and hiring for the new Tech Force initiative to bring in technical staff from Silicon Valley companies into federal service for 2-year terms.
1/30/26
Source
Speaking at the ACT-IAC Summit, Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia touted the work of the National Design Studio and reported that OMB is working closely with NDS to “coalesce” the administration’s website design, comparing it to how certain hotel brands will all look and smell the same. He reports there are internal sandboxes running for new designs and a redesigned site for CIO.gov will soon illustrate the new look. The NDS is also reportedly leaning heavily into using AI for its work. In addition, 35,000 people have applied to the administration’s Tech Force initiative and they are reviewing 6,000 applicants.
February 2026
2/05/26
Sources
The Trump RX site formally relaunches with a lookup option to find savings codes for various prescriptions. Like many other National Design Studio sites, it features a mix of Apple Store-style titles and text styling alongside gilt images of an American map and an eagle and bombastic language extolling Trump himself. In a first for NDS sites, it also features a site search to look up specific medications, each of which has their own page URL.
2/06/26
Sources
The head of the Pentagon’s division for Responsible AI announces his resignation in a LinkedIn post. He stepped down over concerns that safety and governance were being sidelined in the Department of Defense’s push to expand AI usage. He also had circulated memos critical of xAI’s Grok model for its security and ethics.
2/06/26
Sources
The head of the Pentagon’s division for Responsible AI announces his resignation in a LinkedIn post. He stepped down over concerns that safety and governance were being sidelined in the Department of Defense’s push to expand AI usage. He also had circulated memos critical of xAI’s Grok model for its security and ethics.
2/10/26
Source
The news site Nextgov reports that the National Design Studio’s new site realfood.gov is directing users directly to Elon Musk’s Grok AI product. After being contacted by reporters for comment, the link is instead labeled as “Ask AI” but stll points to the Grok site.
2/11/26
Source
The CIO Council launches a new version of its website cio.gov which has been redesigned by the National Design Studio. This site also includes a new design system, which outlines a new style for websites but it lacks instructions, standardized CSS tags or web components found in other design systems like the US Web Design System and it has poor scores for accessibility. Nevertheless, with this launch, the National Design Studio has rebuilt a site with dozens of pages and has also implemented a site search for the first time.
2/20/26
Source
Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit, White House OSTP Director Micheal Kratsios announces that the Peace Corps will launch a new Tech Corps initiative to promote AI worldwide. Volunteers will be deployed to countries participating in the American AI Exports Program, service for 12-27 months overseas. The launch includes a new site for signups that looks like it was developed by the National Design Studio.
2/24/26
Source
In a tweet on his personal X account, National Design Studio member Tyler Kim confirms that the content on cio.gov was “almost entirely generated by our internal ai agent system [end-to-end].”
March 2026
3/06/26
Sources
The Department of Defense names Gavin Kliger as its Chief Data Officer, overseeing aspects of the Pentagon’s AI strategy and coordination with private AI firms. The press release also stated that Mr. Kliger also oversaw the launch of the GenAI.mil site as well as the Drone Dominance program that involved other DOGE staffers. (fuzz: Weirdly, Gavin’s own LinkedIn listed him with the title of Chief Data Officer in December last year.)
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