Reports have surfaced that Elon Musk’s DOGE website may have been compromised by hackers. Experts in the tech field have criticized the site, stating it appears ‘completely slapped together’.
Elon Musk was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). His role involves ‘dismantling Government Bureaucracy, reducing regulations, eliminating wasteful spending, and restructuring Federal Agencies’.
The website, which debuted on Wednesday (12 February), was intended to signify the department’s commitment to ‘maximal transparency’. This came after critics noted the paradox of Musk, a billionaire whose companies have received federal funding, being charged with budget cuts.
“I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization,” Musk stated in a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office this week.
However, just two days after its launch, the website was targeted by hackers on Friday (February 14), as reported by 404 Media.
One hacker left a message saying: “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN – roro.”
Another message criticized the site, saying: “This is a joke of a .gov site.”
These messages have since been deleted.
Web development professionals informed the tech news outlet that the DOGE website seemed hastily assembled, with numerous errors and leaked details within the page’s source code.
They speculated that the website may not be hosted on government servers.
Additionally, DOGE is reported to have inadvertently posted classified staffing details of a US intelligence agency, according to Huffpost.
The site includes a feature allowing users to ‘trace’ their ‘tax dollars from the bureaucracy’, exploring Cabinet-level agencies and other departments to check staffing levels and wages.
A notice clarifies that the data does not cover military, Postal Service, White House, and other intelligence agencies, although it does include information on the federal agency responsible for US intelligence satellites.
The website lists the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as the only intelligence agency, with Musk’s SpaceX having a $1.8 billion contract for spy satellite construction.
SpaceX maintains contracts with NASA amounting to roughly $15 billion, adding complexity to DOGE’s planned review of NASA’s expenditures.
Regarding potential conflicts of interest with Musk’s role in DOGE, Janet Petro, acting NASA administrator, stated that ‘we have very strict conflict of interest policies.’ She noted that the agency’s legal office would review any DOGE employee for such conflicts, as reported by Reuters.
Musk and his DOGE team have since initiated cost-cutting measures, leading to significant federal employee layoffs while the department’s own spending has increased.
According to government records obtained by Fortune, the department’s expenditures rose from $6.75 million in January to $14.4 million by February 8.