Elon Musk's budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is attracting some high-powered lawyers with Supreme Court experience, something the tech billionaire may need as legal challenges mount.
Newsweek sought email comment on Monday from the DOGE and from new DOGE hire, Edward Coristine.
Why It Matters
Musk's effort to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion a year is facing major legal challenges. The DOGE is arming itself with lawyers with Supreme Court clerking experience ahead of legal battles that will likely make their way to America's highest court.
What To Know
Trump announced the formation of the DOGE on his Inauguration Day as part of plans to "dismantle" bureaucracy and reduce federal spending, and announced Tesla CEO Musk as co-chair.
Writing in his legal blog Judicial Notice on Sunday, lawyer David Lat noted that "Elon Musk's team at the Department of Government Efficiency is getting lots of media coverage for its teenage tech whizzes with nicknames like 'Big Balls.'"
That is a reference to Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate and DOGE hire who used the nickname "Big Balls" in his online profiles.
Lat wrote that as well as taking on "Big Balls," the DOGE has hired "some legal Big Brains," which include two former Supreme Court clerks. James Burnham, who clerked for conservative Supreme Court judge, Neil Gorsuch, and Keenan Kmiec, who clerked for Justice Samuel Alito, also a conservative.
The DOGE's team also includes Jacob Altik, who is due to clerk for Gorsuch later this year.
Supreme Court clerks are extremely important as they often research and write the decision for the judges and therefore wield enormous power.
Lat noted that it is not surprising that two of Gorsuch's clerks should be working for the DOGE, given Gorsuch's own interest in cutting the size of the federal government.
"Given Justice Neil Gorsuch's own concern about excessive government—reflected in both his jurisprudence and latest book, the bestselling Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law—it's unsurprising that his clerks are with [the] DOGE," Lat wrote.
What People Are Saying
Noah Rosenblum, a law professor at New York University, told the investigative website ProPublica on February 7 that the DOGE's radical cost-cutting agenda will require smart lawyers to fend off legal challenges.
"What's striking is how contemptuous the [Trump] administration seems to be of traditional administrative law limitations—in ways that might get them into trouble," he said.
"When this stuff goes to the courts, one important question is going to be: How well lawyered was it?"
What Happens Next
On February 8, a New York federal judge granted a temporary injunction to 19 Democrat-leaning states that oppose the DOGE's attempts to obtain vast quantities of Treasury Department financial information on millions of Americans.
Given the seriousness of the issue, and the number of states involved, the case will likely make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the DOGE will need lawyers with Supreme Court experience to help it win this historically important case.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more