The Only Non-Existent Government Worker Is the Head of DOGE

Musk's multi-day hunt for idle or fake federal workers has gone grossly unchallenged

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Elon Musk addressing media questions in the White House on Feb. 11, 2025. (Screengrab / CBS video.)

Days after Elon Musk decided that emailing every individual email account in the federal government was a smart way to ferret out non-existent and non-working employees, the unleashed chaos has rippled through the White House, cabinet-level agencies and more. It also became a dominant political story for several days.

What’s gone woefully underreported is just how stupid a method this was to pursue the alleged ends.

A good manager would have been able to instigate a search for missing or non-working workers in a much more methodical way. Virtually any number of methods likely would have been more effective.

I’ve written a bit already about Musk’s rank stupidity generally and in this case specifically, but it strikes me as worth expanding on if only to offer a contrast to the unquestioning political coverage.

Here’s just one glaring example of how stupid Musk is. And, again, I haven’t seen this pointed out anywhere, let alone anyone asking Musk or Trump about it. Ready?

Musk explained his raison d’email in a Tweet on Sunday. Here’s what he wrote, with more than 24 hours left until the midnight Monday deadline:

“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!

“In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”

In other words, it was a trap. The fake/idle workers would be exposed when they failed to respond to the email.

Except Musk had just alerted the entire world about his brilliant trap.

Which meant every alleged idle worker could dust off their password list, log in, and make up 5 bull(et/shit) points and so could anyone using the dead-people identities to collect paychecks.

Musk put on camouflage and then explained on the internet that he was wearing camouflage in order to catch people who didn’t know he was wearing camouflage. With more than 24 hours left to thwart his trap.

That’s insanely stupid in concept. To have actually upended the, shall we say, efficiency of the government and its workers for multiple days and torpedoed the reason for doing so is insanely stupid in practice. And the kind of thing that merited a drumbeat of explicit coverage. Which we didn’t get.

But there’s an even bigger point to make here, about which, again, neither Musk nor Pres. Donald Trump have been questioned, as far as I’m aware, let alone challenged.

As I noted above, Musk said, “a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!”

Trump on Monday said something similar: “a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist…”

There’s a couple layers to the stupid at work here, but again the howling problem is the lack of media focus on any of them.

Has anyone asked Trump or Musk how they know that “a significant number” and/or “a lot” of federal workers don’t exist and/or don’t check their emails? This matters beyond the media’s too-frequent unblinking acceptance of flagrant fictions.

It matters even beyond the morally offensive lack of integrity it takes for two powerful men with massive platforms to invent calumnies about the federal workforce they are supposed to be leading.

The additional, pragmatic reason it matters that Trump and Musk made this claim is that, in theory, if they had reason to believe it, that would be where one would start one’s search for fake/idle workers.

Did someone make this allegation? Who? What made them think it’s true? Let’s track that down!

Is there a disparity someone found between payroll lists and email accounts? Maybe the boy geniuses Musk brought in can isolate email accounts that actually haven’t had any activity and correlate those with the payroll lists.

Is it possible there are some fake/idle workers? Theoretically, sure. But as with made-up voter fraud, there’s zero evidence that’s been offered that it’s substantial let alone systemic let alone worth all of this sturm und drang.

And even in the total absence of an empirical bread-crumb trail to follow, even if this was purely — as I suspect it was — the work of a single nerve impulse hopping synapses on a ketamine jet stream, there were vastly more, shall we say, efficient ways of acting on it. Assuming other nerve impulses didn’t team up to kill it first.

Musk could, in theory, have communicated — like a good manager — with other people on his team.

“Hey, gang, any chance we’ve got a ton of non-existent people on our payrolls?” In the absence of a definitive no, he could — like a good manager — have del’-ə-gāt-əd the task of finding out.

I can’t claim to know the best route to address this, but I do know that it’s possible to ask people with actual management training to assist with developing a good strategy for pursuing Musk’s fake/idle workers.

And there’s no rule that says Professional Journalists can’t ask these kinds of questions! Also: definitely no rule that says our mainstream corporate political coverage can’t at least acknowledge their implications.

At the very least, someone ought to have noted the searing irony that Musk and presumably DOGE are on the hunt for missing workers, at the same time federal judges are asking government attorneys to identify the person running DOGE.

[UPDATE: The Washington Examiner today revealed the identity of the DOGE administrator: She’s Amy Gleason. According to CNN, not much is known about her background or how recently someone decided she was it. We now resume our mockery of the previous administrator-lessness, already in progress…)

In a Feb. 17 filing by the White House Office of Administration, Director Joshua Fisher averred that “Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.” He didn’t say who was.

I don’t have anything more to add (for now). But if you’re at all curious about the competence and efficiency and professionalism at work here, I’m going to drop a lengthy courtroom exchange before I go.

The status of the missing DOGE administrator had not been resolved a full week later. Here’s the gobdropping, jawsmacking transcript, posted by Lawfare, of actual government lawyers, primarily Bradley Humphreys (potentially yet another victim here), in court on Monday with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

See if you can make it all the way through without marveling that Kollar-Kotelly didn’t dropkick someone.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Do you know where in the federal bureaucracy DOGE was located on Jan. 19? Was it a component of OMB [Office of Management and Budget]?

HUMPHREYS: I do believe that’s correct, Your Honor.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Okay, and the administrator of USDS [DOGE] at that point was a Schedule C employee?

HUMPHREYS: I don’t know the answer, Your Honor.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Do you know anything about who was in charge when it was in OMB?

HUMPHREYS: No, Your Honor.

…

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: What I’m getting at is that I understand it was a component of OMB. At this point, there doesn’t appear to be an administrator, but I’ll get to that. When it was with OMB, I take it that it did have an administrator who was a Schedule C government employee?

HUMPHREYS: I don’t have that information at this time.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Okay, anyone else know at the table? [Addressing other government attorneys] This would have been before it was relocated to the Executive Office of the President.

HUMPHREYS: We do not have that information.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: That's okay. I realize that you may not have prepared for this. So now USDS [DOGE] has been renamed, and it's been relocated out of OMB to the Executive Office of the President. And an administrator of DOGE reports to the White House Chief of Staff. Is that correct at this point?

HUMPHREYS: That is the terms of the executive order.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Okay, is the administrator of USDS still a Schedule C employee position?

HUMPHREYS: Um, I don’t know.

…

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: On Feb. 17, the Justice Department represented to Judge Tanya Chutkan that Mr. Musk is not the administrator of DOGE. Is that correct?

HUMPHREYS: That is correct.

…

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: So, if I have to decide at some point what role Mr. Musk has in DOGE, what representation do I provide? He’s not the administrator. He obviously has a role…What is his position? He’s not the administrator and he’s not an employee, as I understand it, of DOGE. But he seems to be speaking on behalf of DOGE. So, can you tell me what his role is?

HUMPHREYS: …my understanding is that Mr. Musk is a close advisor to the president. However, for our purposes, the inquiry flows from the president to the Secretary of the Treasury, who then oversees Mr. Krause through the [Treasury] chief of staff.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: But where is Mr. Musk in all this?

HUMPHREYS: I don’t have any further information. He’s a close adviser to the president, which then, under the president’s authority, goes to the Secretary of Treasury and then down to the Treasury—

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: So as an adviser, would Musk be in some other employment category?

HUMPHREYS: I’m not aware.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Okay, so, is there an administrator of DOGE at the present time?

HUMPHREYS: I don’t know the answer to that.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: You don’t know whether there is an administrator, is that what you’re saying?

HUMPHREYS: I’m saying I don’t know.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY [to the other government attorneys]: Okay, everybody at the table speak up over there if you know anything else.

[Silence.]

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: I mean, I have to say, the government represented to a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia that there is, quote, an “acting USDS administrator.” And obviously the executive order creating DOGE says there’s a USDS [DOGE] administrator. So isn't there some problem, if there's no administrator, as to how DOGE functions? Who supervises them, how do they come up with ideas? I mean, if you've got employees that are with DOGE, that are working with Treasury, who's telling them what to do, if there's no administrator?

[Humphreys tries to teleport himself to another planet. When that fails, he tries to argue none of this matters, but…]

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: It does make a difference, ultimately, and I’m getting there. But I need to know some facts before I get there. Obviously, DOGE employees are involved in this engagement plan. I would think that somebody would be telling them what to do. And as I understand, you don’t know how that’s operating.

HUMPHREYS: As I mentioned, Mr. Krause reports to the Treasury Secretary’s chief of staff. And USDS is not part of that chain of command.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Ok, but Mr. Krause is part of the USDS team within Treasury. So who is telling him what the priorities or anything else is?

HUMPHREYS: The executive order sets out high-level priorities for modernization.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: So whatever the executive order is, which is fairly broad, he’s to decide how that is to be implemented? Is that the answer?

HUMPHREYS: As otherwise directed by the chief of staff of Treasury and the Treasury Secretary.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: But they’re not a part of the DOGE team. What’s the relationship between the Secretary and Mr. Krause in terms of implementation of DOGE priorities?

HUMPHREYS: As a formal matter, I don't think there is a relationship, Your Honor, the relationship is through the executive order. And I can't say that discussions, you know, don't happen between DOGE and Mr. Krause. I believe they do. But in terms of authority and decision-making, again, it's a chain of command.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: The executive order states that agency heads shall select DOGE team members in consultation with the DOGE administrator. It seems there’s no administrator to consult with. Who did the Treasury Secretary consult with when he hired Mr. Krause? And the executive order states the DOGE administrator shall commence a software modernization initiative. Has the initiative been commenced? By whom? If there's no administrator, who did it?

HUMPHREYS: The team is going about modernizing and improving legacy systems—

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: What team?

HUMPHREYS: When I’m referring to the Treasury DOGE team, I’m referring to Mr. Krause, previously, Mr. Elez, and now Mr. Wunderly.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: I mean, with Mr. Krause, it looks like there’s no administrator telling him anything. I'm still having trouble grasping how they're going out as a team if nobody's telling them what to do other than the executive order…And it doesn’t sound like you’ve prepared for these questions, which is unfortunate.

But, as I understand it, there is no administrator. So, what the executive order says the administrator is supposed to be doing at DOGE is not happening. And at this point we don't know who is actually doing these things that the administrator was supposed to do. Is that fair?

HUMPHREYS: I think that’s fair...Again, the mission of the executive order was to modernize the technology…

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Right, but who decides the modernization? Or who decides what to do with the modernization?

HUMPHREYS: As we’ve described, Mr. Krause was selected because he has a wealth of experience.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Selected by whom?

HUMPHREYS: Well, he was appointed by the Treasury in conjunction with DOGE, officially.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: By DOGE, but there’s no administrator?

HUMPHREYS: I don’t know specifically the person who consulted with the Secretary.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: [Explains that she needs to know all of this stuff because she’s being asked to rule on DOGE’s activities] …Mr. Krause said in his Feb. 12 declaration that he coordinates with “officials” at USDS [DOGE]... “Officials” are not just employees. Those officials are people that could be in a different category than regular employees. My question is, who are the DOGE officials who give Mr. Krause direction? What are their titles? When DOGE officials provide high-level policy direction to a high-ranking employee at Treasury, are they exercising significant authority and discretion? If so, does that make them “officers” under the Appointments Clause? Were they nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate?

That's why I'm asking these questions, and there’s a lack of information about how all this is structured. Do you understand my concern?

HUMPHREYS: I believe I understand the concern, though not how it relates to these claims.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Well, if they’re acting unconstitutionally, wouldn’t that be irreparable harm?

HUMPHREYS: No, for many reasons. We can discuss these particular claims…

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Well, wouldn’t it be ultra vires? If they’re taking direction or doing things where they do not have this authority under the Appointments Clause?

HUMPHREYS: I’m just not prepared to opine on issues that the plaintiffs have not briefed.

JUDGE KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Okay, well, I’m raising an issue for you. And hopefully you will learn who's involved, who's in charge, who's giving them direction, which I think is key to making some decisions here about what exactly their authority is…At this point, it appears that you're not in a position to answer those questions. Would that be accurate?

HUMPHREYS: I am not, your honor.

Aaaand scene.

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Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes at MSNBC and was a Countdown with Keith Olbermann writer and senior producer. He helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and also worked at The Young Turks and The Daily Show with John Stewart.