WASHINGTON – The legions of lobbyists who have long worked the halls of Congress and federal agencies to secure their policy priorities have a new target: A shadow federal department run by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
The Musk-run initiative, dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), is supposed to advise President-elect Donald Trump on spending cuts and regulatory reform. It doesn’t yet – and may never – have any formalised responsibilities or authority. So far, its recruits have been organising in clandestine meetings blocks from the White House.
But already, companies and industry groups have started looking to the Doge, above the more traditional committees of Congress and federal agencies, to advance their agendas and protect their interests.
The urgency to make inroads with Mr Musk’s group underscores how special interests see the billionaire as a shortcut to Trump, a way to push their issues to the front of the line. It also shows how an entity ostensibly created to disrupt politics as usual is quickly becoming a target for Washington’s seasoned advocacy apparatus.
The exact scope of the lobbying isn’t known. As of now, the Doge’s most public structure is its social media account on X, and despite its name, it won’t be a department. It might not even be a part of the federal government. That means lobbyists don’t have to say if they’re in touch with the organisation, an end-run around standard disclosure rules.
But a handful of companies have nevertheless filed federal reports that they’re either lobbying the group directly or talking with members of Congress about the effort and the issues the entity is likely to tackle.
Some are doing that work in plain sight. This week, defence contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc sent a letter to Mr Musk and his partner, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and posted it on the company’s web site.
L3Harris urged them to endorse four technical changes to the federal contracting process “to unleash American industry and make defence acquisition more efficient”.
Mr Kenneth Bedingfield, the company’s chief financial officer, told an investor conference in December that the company was watching the Doge closely and “trying to understand what the focus will be”.
“We’re gathering as much information as possible, trying to stay nimble, and then be ready to support as the administration determines its path forward, the budget, the levels, and the mission capabilities that are needed,” he said.
Lobbying spurt
Others either lobbying the Doge or members of Congress with close ties to the effort include interests as varied as broadband internet, health care and retired union workers.
The Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine is lobbying members of Congress who have joined the “Doge Caucus”, trying to get rid of a new Food and Drug Administration regulation on in-laboratory medical tests.
RSM, the consulting firm formerly known as McGladrey LLP, is lobbying those caucus members on their “roles & responsibilities” in relation to the Doge. The same lobbyist is also lobbying on broadband regulations.
And the Alliance for Retired Americans is playing defence, trying to convince Mr Musk to keep his hands off the social safety net programmes like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr Richard Fiesta, the director of the union-backed lobbying group, said it would be foolish to focus solely on the traditional budget and appropriations committees in Congress, even if it’s not clear yet what the Doge will be.
“We don’t know what this is going to look like, but it’s being run by somebody who has the president-elect’s ear,” he said. “We’re in uncharted territory. It’s like, which shiny object are they going to pay attention to this week? For us, it’s all hands on deck to be alert and vigilant.”
Even members of Congress, typically on the receiving end of lobbying entreaties, are appealing to Mr Musk to turn their policy proposals into reality.
Soon after the election, Senator Joni Ernst sent Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy a seven-page list of ideas to give them a “head start” on their deliberations. Among the Iowa Republican’s suggestions: Selling federal office buildings, auditing the Internal Revenue Service, cancelling California transit projects and ending the production of pennies. (All of which are already within the authority of Congress itself.)
Access questions
For those who aren’t members of Congress, lobbying the Doge directly can be difficult. It has no permanent office and no public email address. Instead, Mr Musk has encouraged people to submit cost-cutting ideas – and job applications – on his social media app X.
To try to get the attention of the Doge, Mr Sam Geduldig, a Republican lobbyist, said he recently placed a story on behalf of a client with conservative media outlet Breitbart News. It ran with the headline “Just DOGE IT!” and Breitbart’s editor-in-chief then posted the story on X and tagged Mr Musk.
“I lobby on X these days,” Mr Geduldig said. “The reason we gave this story to Breitbart is I thought Elon might see it.”
Ultimately, Mr Musk – and his business interests, and his world view – seem to be at the heart of the Doge effort. Until it can find more permanent office space, the Doge is being run out of the lobbying offices of SpaceX – the space exploration company owned by Mr Musk himself.
In addition to Mr Musk’s political views and opinions, SpaceX, Tesla and other of Mr Musk’s companies have benefitted from government contracts, loans, tax credits and other programmes raising ethical questions about the billionaire’s ability to recommend which federal spending programmes to cut and preserve.
The ethics laws governing Doge are murky, because it’s unclear whether it will be a private group or a federal agency. But Mr Noah Bookbinder, of the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the Doge is acting like a federal advisory committee and should comply with conflict-of-interest laws.
“If you have essentially governmental functions being performed – apparently without the requirements and oversight that you normally have for government – that creates some risks of improper influence or other ethical problems,” he said. “It creates a lack of transparency.” BLOOMBERG
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