Trump has already been sued over Elon Musk's DOGE

A trio of organizations — nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the left-wing nonprofit State Democracy Defenders Fund — on Monday sued Trump and his administration over plans to launch the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, under the leadership of billionaire Elon Musk.

In November, Trump said he would establish DOGE — Musk’s brainchild — as a non-government body that will make recommendations for cutting federal spending. It’s expected to work with the Office of Management and Budget, which was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia.

“My administration will establish the brand new Department of Government Efficiency,” Trump said Monday. However, DOGE has been in the works — and hiring — since November.

The lawsuit accuses Trump of allowing DOGE to operate outside of legal guidelines established by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires public involvement in advisory committees. The plaintiffs say DOGE has been operating like an advisory committee without abiding by the law’s transparency requirements.

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Musk aims to “try” to reach an ambitious goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending. Although other members of DOGE aren’t as well-known, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has said he will take an unpaid role helping the group.

Cuts are expected to be targeted at remote work for federal employees, funding for non-government organizations, regulations DOGE deems burdensome, and federal agencies like the Department of Education.

“AFGE will not stand idly by as a secretive group of ultra-wealthy individuals with major conflicts of interest attempt to deregulate themselves and give their own companies sweetheart government contracts while firing civil servants and dismantling the institutions designed to serve the American people,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley, who represents 800,000 workers, said in a statement.

Leading DOGE will give Musk a supervisory role over the agencies regulating his companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission last week sued Musk over his 2022 acquisition of Twitter $TWTR, now X, and has a probe into his Neuralink startup, as well as Tesla $TSLA (TSLA). Collectively, those companies, along with SpaceX, are the subject of at least 20 recent investigations or reviews. Tesla and SpaceX have collectively received more than $15 billion in government contracts and frequently come into conflict with regulators.