DOGE Using AI to Monitor Government Employees

Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government officials that Elon Musk’s DOGE technology team is using artificial intelligence to monitor communications from at least one federal agency for hostility toward President Donald Trump and his plans, two people familiar with the matter said. While much of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency remains shrouded in secrecy, the monitoring would represent an extraordinary use of technology to detect signs of perceived disloyalty among employees who have already reversed massive layoffs and severe spending cuts.

The DOGE team also uses the Signal app to communicate, according to another person with direct knowledge of the matter, potentially violating federal records rules because messages can disappear after a period of time. And they have “seriously” deployed Musk’s Grok AI chatbot — a potential competitor to ChatGPT — as part of their work to shrink the federal government, the person said. The White House, DOGE and Musk did not respond to requests for comment, Reuters has reported.

AI to monitor employees

The use of AI and Signal is raising concerns among cybersecurity experts and government ethicists that DOGE operates with limited transparency and that billionaire Musk or the Trump administration could use information gathered through AI to advance their own interests or pursue political goals. Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis, said DOGE’s use of privacy-focused Signal is raising concerns about its data security practices after senior Trump administration officials were criticized last month for mistakenly including a journalist in a group chat about high-level military planning in Yemen.

Interviews with nearly 20 people familiar with DOGE’s activities, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of court documents from lawsuits challenging DOGE’s access to data, highlight the unorthodox use of AI and other technologies in federal government operations. At the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, Trump appointees have told some EPA executives that Musk’s team is deploying AI to monitor employees, including looking for comments deemed hostile to Trump or Musk, the two people said.

Monitoring Communications Programs

The EPA, which enforces laws like the Clean Air Act and works to protect the environment, has come under scrutiny from the Trump administration. Since January, the company has furloughed nearly 600 employees and said it would eliminate 65% of its budget, which could require further staff cuts. Trump-appointed officials who took over at the EPA told managers that DOGE was using artificial intelligence to monitor communications apps and software, including Microsoft Teams, which is widely used for virtual calls and chats, two sources familiar with the comments said.

Trump officials said DOGE would seek out people whose work was not aligned with the administration’s mission, the first two sources said. After the story was published, the EPA acknowledged in a statement that it was “considering AI to better streamline agency functions and administrative efficiency” but said it was not using AI “because it makes personnel decisions in conjunction with DOGE.” It did not say specifically whether it was using AI to monitor employees. Musk described DOGE as a technological attempt to make the U.S. federal government more efficient by fighting waste, fraud and abuse. He said the goal was to cut $1 trillion, or 15% of the annual U.S. budget.