DOGE's Tentacles Aim to Squeeze Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education is reportedly the next agency in the crosshairs of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an Elon Musk-led White House team tasked with slashing government regulation and spending.

Roughly 20 people with DOGE are working inside the Department of Education with the aim of cutting spending and staff, The Washington Postreported Monday, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the situation and records the outlet obtained. The Wall Street Journal also reported that representatives from DOGE are working out of the Department of Education building, and sources told the outlet that DOGE is eyeing the agency as a target for its efforts to slash bureaucracy.

But in the long term, the Trump administration has even more drastic plans for the department that was established by Congress back in 1979. Both papers report that the administration is prepping an executive order aimed at dismantling the agency entirely.

According to the Journal, officials are discussing the an executive order that "would shut down all functions of the agency that aren't written explicitly into statute or move certain functions to other departments" and would also "call for developing a legislative proposal to abolish the department," according to people familiar with the matter. Timing and specifics are still being hammered out.

Because the agency was created by Congress, it therefore can only be fully eliminated by Congress, according to the Post.

Musk on Monday night wrote on his platform X that U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to fully dismantle the Department of Education "will succeed." Trump pledged to get rid of the Department of Education on the campaign trail and the priority was also listed among the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" policy proposals.

"They want to destroy public education," wrote Alejandra Caraballo, an instructor at Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, in response to the Post's reporting.

Since Trump's inauguration, Musk and his lieutenants at DOGE have moved swiftly to gain influence over multiple government agencies. Last week, DOGE fired officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development and earlier this week Musk said he intended to shut it down completely. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he's now in control of the agency.

DOGE representatives were also given access to a Treasury Department payment system that processes trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions and holds personal financial data on millions of Americans. Two unions and an advocacy group sued Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Treasury Department in federal court Monday for giving DOGE access to the system, citing privacy concerns.