• The Office of Personnel Management asked federal workers to email a list of their accomplishments over the past week.
• A number of federal agencies told their employees that they were not required to respond.
• Some agencies said a response is voluntary, while others said they would respond on employees' behalf.

Some federal agencies' response to Elon Musk's worker productivity email: thanks, but no thanks.

A growing number of agencies are telling their workers that they are not required to respond to the email sent from the Office of Personnel Management over the weekend asking for a list of accomplishments from the past week.

According to emails reviewed by Business Insider, some of the agencies told employees that they would respond to OPM on their behalf. Others said a response is voluntary, and failure to respond will not result in any penalties.

In a post on X on Saturday, Musk said that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," but the initial email didn't make the same claim. This comes after a tumultuous past few weeks for federal workers; a number of agencies terminated thousands of employees last week following directions from President Donald Trump and Musk's DOGE to slash government waste.

These are the federal agencies BI has verified that have so far told their workers that they do not need to respond to OPM's email ahead of the 11:59 p.m. Eastern time deadline on Monday night.

Department of Defense

The Department of Defense posted on X on Sunday that its employees should "pause any response" to the OPM's email.

"The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," the statement said.

Social Security Administration

On Sunday, the Social Security Administration sent an email to its employees telling them that the OPM email is "a legitimate assignment" and those who received it were required to respond.

However, the agency followed up on Monday afternoon telling employees that any response is "voluntary."

"Non-responses are not considered a resignation," the email said.

NASA

NASA emailed its employees on Monday afternoon saying, "You are not required to respond, and there is no impact on your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."

The agency said it would respond on employees' behalf and that "employees should continue to feel empowered to report their activities and accomplishments" to their supervisors.

Department of Justice

Jolene Ann Lauria, acting assistant attorney general for administration at the DOJ, emailed employees on Monday: "Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the Department's work, DOJ employees do not need to respond to the email from OPM."

Bloomberg Law reported that this was a reversal of Lauria's earlier guidance that instructed employees to respond to the email.

Department of Agriculture

The USDA told employees on Monday afternoon that responding to the email is "voluntary," and that "there is no penalty for not responding to the request."

The USDA guidance said that those who do choose to respond should refrain from submitting any sensitive or confidential information.

State Department

The State Department told employees that it would respond on behalf of the agency.

"No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command," the department said.

Department of Energy

The Department of Energy emailed its employees on Sunday night, instructing them to "pause" any responses to the OPM email.

"The Department of Energy is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," the department said. "When and if required, the Department will provide a coordinated response to the OPM email."

Are you a federal worker? Got a tip? Contact these reporters securely on Signal at the usernames asheffey.97 or alicetecotzky.05, or email them at [email protected] or [email protected].

• Donald Trump's political operation is cashing in on DOGE.
• Trump's group is selling official Trump DOGE membership cards.
• Some merchandise also features Elon Musk.

President Donald Trump's political operation is selling DOGE membership cards, part of an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the White House DOGE office and Elon Musk's role in it.

"Today, I'm announcing that YOU can become an OFFICIAL TRUMP DOGE MEMBER!" Trump's political operation wrote in an email to supporters Sunday night.

For a minimum $47 donation, supporters can get their name on a black metal card that says "Trump DOGE member." If that is too pricy, there are also Trump DOGE T-shirts. One shirt for $40 depicts Trump and Musk. Another for $28 shows Trump, Musk, and the Shiba Inu dog, which inspired the original doge meme.

The White House's efficiency initiative is one of the most visible parts of Trump's second term.

DOGE has been the subject of numerous lawsuits from federal workers, Democratic state attorneys general, and good government groups. Trump initially appointed Musk to co-lead the "Department of Government Efficiency," though a top White House official recently declared in a legal filing that Musk is not the DOGE administrator. Musk is a senior White House advisor and remains closely linked to DOGE.

Over the weekend, Musk upended federal agencies by claiming that employees would be fired if they did not respond to an email asking, "What did you do last week?" A number of departments have since told federal workers to pause potential responses ahead of the midnight deadline.

Musk spent over $290 million on the 2024 election to elect Trump. Trump and his allies have featured Musk prominently. Trump's emails to supporters often seize on the latest DOGE headline, including Democratic lawmakers' calls for Trump to rein in the world's richest man.

Trump is term-limited out of the White House, but his political operation has remained active. According to Axios, it plans on using the money to back candidates ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Republicans hold narrow majorities in Congress. Historically, incumbent presidents have lost seats in both chambers, though the GOP currently has a much easier path to retaining control of the US Senate.

Trump could also use his war chest to remain active in the GOP once he leaves office in 2029.

• DOGE says it's saved $55 billion in total, documenting some of that on a "wall of receipts" on its website.
• On Tuesday, its website showed $16.5 billion in savings, much of that canceled contracts.
• By Thursday, it had lowered the contract savings amount saved to $7.2 billion, mainly due to an $8 billion error.

The White House Department of Government Efficiency office linked to Elon Musk has lowered its expected savings from canceled federal contracts by about $9.3 billion in the last two days.

A Business Insider review of the "wall of receipts" on doge.gov found that Elon Musk's team has lowered its claimed savings from $16.5 billion on Tuesday to $7.2 billion as of Thursday.

A few changed entries seem to account for nearly all of the difference. Most notably, DOGE initially claimed to have canceled a $8 billion contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The contract was for $8 million. DOGE wrote in a post on X that "the agency contracting officer mistakenly" entered the wrong amount.

Additionally, DOGE initially claimed to save about $2 billion by canceling a trio of USAID deals worth $655 million each. Now, that contract only appears once — amounting to another $1.3 billion reduction.

According to a White House official, "DOGE reports both the 'ceiling value' and the 'savings value'" and calculates savings by subtracting already obligated funds from a contract's total award value. The official told BI this method is "actually conservative because DOGE does not take credit for recovered obligated funds" and "does not assume any administrative savings in its calculations."

Musk told reporters last week that sometimes he'll get things incorrect.

"Nobody's going to bat a thousand," Musk said during an appearance alongside Trump in the Oval Office. "We will make mistakes. But we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes."

DOGE's total estimated savings are $55 billion, according to the summary on its site, which it called a combination of "fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings."

However, so far DOGE's website doesn't include any estimates for savings from anything except "contract/lease cancellations."

Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a joint interview with the president that DOGE aims to cut at least $1 trillion from the federal deficit.

• Donald Trump told reporters that someone would "make sure" gold is still in Fort Knox.
• The Treasury Department already audits the stockpile every year.
• "All the gold is there," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to know if the American people have been fooled about the amount of gold that remains at Fort Knox.

"We're going to go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there," Trump told reporters Wednesday while aboard Air Force One.

Musk wrote multiple posts on X earlier this week before Trump broached auditing the famed base, which houses the US Treasury's bullion reserves.

"It would be cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox!" Musk wrote in a reply to far-right radio host Alex Jones on February 17. Later that day, he again posted about the base.

"Who is confirming that gold wasn't stolen from Fort Knox?" Musk wrote. "Maybe it's there, maybe it's not."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the department already audits the stockpile every year.

"I don't have any plans to go to Kentucky," Bessent told Bloomberg TV on Thursday. "I can tell the American people on camera right now, there was a report, September 30th, 2024, all the the gold is there. Any US senator who wants to come and visit it can arrange a visit through our office."

According to the US Mint, 147.3 million ounces, about half of the Treasury's reserves, are stored at Fort Knox. The website further states that there hasn't been a removal of large amounts of gold in years.

"The only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits," the site reads. "Except for these samples, no gold has been transferred to or from the Depository for many years."

It's unclear where Trump and Musk think the gold might have gone. Over the years, there have been various conspiracy theories that the gold reserves have been depleted.

When asked what may have happened to the gold, Trump didn't get into specifics.

"If the gold isn't there, we're going to be very upset," the president said.

Fort Knox's reserves are closed to the public. It remains to be seen if Musk's Department of Government Efficiency will get a peak.

It's unlikely such an examination would be broadcast.

"Only a few know the actual structure and content of the facility, and no one person knows all the procedures to open the vault," the US Mint site reads.

• President Donald Trump endorsed a House GOP budget plan Wednesday.
• Republicans' outline would likely lead to billions in cuts to Medicaid, which insures 70 million.
• In an interview alongside Elon Musk that aired Tuesday night, Trump said he wouldn't touch Medicaid.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed a House Republican budget plan that could cut billions from Medicaid, just hours after pledging that the healthcare program for millions of disabled and low-income Americans would not be touched.

Republican leaders have called for massive spending cuts to finance trillions in tax cuts and other provisions. House conservatives won a major concession last week, passing a budget blueprint that ties the size of the proposed tax cuts to the size of spending cuts. If Republicans don't cut enough spending, their outline would likely not allow for all of Trump's promises, including ending taxes on tips and overtime pay.

During an interview alongside his senior advisor Elon Musk, Trump said he would not touch Medicaid. He has pledged not to cut Social Security or Medicare, the largest federal government programs, though his administration has recently targeted Social Security over fraud suspicions.

"Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched," Trump told the Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview that aired on Tuesday night.

Senate Democrats criticized Trump's embrace of the House GOP blueprint.

"Last night, the president said, 'I'm not touching Medicare, Medicaid, the VA," Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin told reporters at the Capitol. "By this morning, he endorsed the House budget resolution, which paves the way for massive cuts to Medicaid."

Trump previously said he would "love and cherish" Medicaid, which insures over 70 million Americans, according to October data. The federal government covers most of the cost of the program, which was created in the same 1965 law that birthed Medicare, a separate program for Americans 65 and older.

The White House said the Trump administration remains committed to Medicaid while pursuing changes that could alter the program.

"The Trump administration is committed to protecting Medicare and Medicaid while slashing the waste, fraud, and abuse within those programs — reforms that will increase efficiency and improve care for beneficiaries," White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement on Wednesday.

Last week, the House Budget Committee released its budget draft, which outlined about $2 trillion in spending cuts. These included a proposed $880 billion in spending cuts from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would extend for a decade.

It's likely these cuts would target Medicaid. The program covers healthcare services for lower-income Americans of all ages, accounting for about $872 billion in spending in 2023.

Some GOP leaders have suggested implementing per-capita caps on Medicaid, which could save up to $900 billion, a House Budget Committee proposal said. Cuts to Medicaid would likely reduce services or prompt a search for other funding methods, which could affect millions of recipients.

Trump's statement comes as congressional Republicans tussle over how to best proceed with the special budget process that allows them to extend Trump's 2017 tax plan, fund stiffer immigration enforcement, and potentially pass a plan for no taxes on tips, all without requiring the support of a single Democratic lawmaker. Known as reconciliation, the process is likely Trump's best avenue to pass the bulk of his domestic agenda, given Republicans' thin majorities in Congress.

Senate Republicans have a competing plan, which does not include tax cuts. Under their proposal, the GOP would return to extending tax cuts and passing additional ones later this year. Senate Republicans were expected to move forward with their proposal before Trump posted Wednesday on Truth Social his praise of the House version of the bill in comparison with the Senate's.

• A recent White House court filing says Elon Musk lacks any "actual or formal authority."
• Musk isn't technically DOGE's leader, and his job title is "unlisted," as BI previously reported.
• A recent email sent to the newly rebranded DOGE agency didn't identify the leader.

Elon Musk is often called the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency. But a recent White House court filing said the assumed leader of DOGE had "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself."

"In his role as Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors," Joshua Fisher, the director of the Office of Administration, wrote in the filing. "Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself."

Fisher wrote that Musk's position was akin to the senior advisor Anita Dunn's role in President Joe Biden's White House.

Later Tuesday afternoon, Trump told reporters that Musk could be called "whatever you want."

"Elon is to me a patriot," Trump said after signing a series of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. "You could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want."

Musk's job title, according to a White House record, is "unlisted," as Business Insider previously reported. When Trump created DOGE via executive order, he incorporated it into the White House by turning the US Digital Service into the US DOGE Service. The executive order said an "administrator" would lead DOGE but didn't identify the person in the role.

Monday's court filing leaves little up for debate about Musk's relationship to DOGE.

"He is not an employee of the US DOGE Service or US DOGE Service Temporary Organization," it said. "Mr. Musk is not the US DOGE Service Administrator."

A return-to-work email sent from an email account called "admin" to USDS employees didn't shed any light on who was leading the commission. The email, a copy of which BI reviewed, notified all staffers that they must begin working in person by April 15 but didn't specify who was leading the rebranded USDS. The "admin" email was signed "US DOGE Service."

Early this month, a White House spokesman told BI that Musk was a special government employee, a title that exempts him from the typical ethics and conflict-of-interest rules that federal workers face. He won't be paid and can't serve for more than 130 days in a year.

Official title — or lack thereof — aside, Musk and DOGE are sending shockwaves throughout the federal government, cutting entire agencies and terminating federal employees.

DOGE's organizational structure carries importance beyond just how Musk and its staffers do their business.

Katie Miller, a spokesperson for DOGE, has said on X that since the group is part of the Executive Office of the President, its records are subject to the Presidential Records Act. By making such a claim, the White House would effectively seal DOGE's records until at least five years after Trump leaves office in 2029.

DOGE is scheduled to complete its work by July 4, 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the US's independence.

Representatives for the White House, Musk, and DOGE did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Jack Newsham contributed reporting.

Do you work at a federal agency? Have a tip about DOGE? Share your experience and thoughts with this reporter at [email protected] or via Signal at alicetecotzky.05.

• Thousands of federal workers have been fired across multiple federal agencies.
• The layoffs target probationary workers, who typically have been in a role for less than two years.
• It comes as the Trump administration targets spending in the federal government.

Mass layoffs swept through federal agencies on this week, as the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal workforce led to thousands of workers being terminated.

Agencies from the Office of Personnel Management to the US Forest Service notified probationary employees on Thursday of their termination, multiple sources inside each of those agencies told Business Insider.

Workers classified as "probationary" typically have less than two years of experience in their roles. The layoffs came one day after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration's buyout offer could proceed.

David Rice, a probationary employee at the Department of Energy, received his termination notice — reviewed by BI — on Thursday night. He was hired in September after serving in the Army for 25 years, and he said that had he not checked his email before he was locked out of the system, he never would have known.

"I would have tried to log in on Tuesday morning and found out that I can't log in," Rice said. "I never would even been notified because no one's called me. No one's told me anything other than just sending me an email after hours."

Here's a look at which agencies have been affected.

Forest Service

About 3,400 probationary workers at Forest Service were fired on Thursday, Dennis Lapcewich, the vice president of the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees union, told BI.

The USFS employs about 35,000 people.

A USFS spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

"It's like watching the enemy advance and seeing that the next town over just got razed," a National Park Service employee told BI.

A USFS employee who has worked in the federal government for six years told BI that he's most worried about the long-term effects of the cuts on those who rely on the forest service's resources.

"I worry about myself personally, but I'm a public servant. I care about the public. I took an oath to the Constitution," he said. Though he's not a probationary employee and wasn't fired, he said he learned on a group video call on Thursday about the terminations and that some senior leadership in the Washington office would be immediately reassigned.

"These are the next generation of public servants. Obviously, with anything in life, you want to have some type of succession plan. We're missing out on building the succession plan," he told BI.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM)

OPM, which is essentially the US government's HR department and oversees the retirement accounts for about 2.8 million active federal workers, fired dozens of probationary employees on Thursday.

On the call, which took place around 2:40 PM ET, an OPM official announced that affected employees had until 3 PM ET —approximately 20 minutes — to gather their belongings before their access to the office and IT systems would be terminated. BI reviewed a recording of the call.

"Professionalism my ass," one probationary employee who was laid off told BI over text. "Definitely wasn't treated with dignity."

Department of Education and Small Business Administration

Termination notices were also sent to probationary workers at the Department of Education and Small Business Administration on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to letters that were viewed by BI.

A letter sent to one Department of Education employee whose identity was verified by Business Insider said the agency found that the worker did not demonstrate their employment would be "in the public interest."

At least 60 probationary employees with the Department of Education received the letters or received phone calls from management, union officials told BI.

An SBA spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment from BI. A representative from the Department of Education declined to comment to BI.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A probationary employee at the CDC told BI that she and her colleagues spent much of Friday anxiously waiting to hear if they were being fired. At 4:00 p.m. ET that day, she joined a group video call, which BI reviewed an audio recording of. On the call, senior leadership said that around 750 probationary employees would be terminated that day. Employees were not allowed to ask questions.

The speaker said they learned of the terminations this morning and that those impacted would receive their termination notices from the Health and Human Services Department today. Some temporary appointment employees might also be laid off, the speaker said on the call. Senior leadership said they'd received a list of impacted workers and could flag any "errors" to HHS

"If an individual receives those notifications, their access to their government systems here at the agency as well as their badges — they're going to be turned off today once those notices go out," the speaker said on the video call.

As of 15 minutes after the call, neither the employee nor any of the colleagues they spoke to had received a termination notice, and their boss didn't know if they were on the list of impacted workers.

Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced the termination of 1,000 employees on Thursday.

The VA press release said that it dismissed "non-bargaining unit probationary employees" who had served two years or less in their appointments, and the agency estimated the terminations would save it more than $98 million per year.

"This was a tough decision, but ultimately it's the right call to better support the Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors the department exists to serve," VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement.

"To be perfectly clear," Collins said, "these moves will not negatively impact VA healthcare, benefits, or beneficiaries. In the coming weeks and months, VA will be announcing plans to put these resources to work helping veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors."

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated dozens of probationary employees on Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The termination notice, reviewed by BI, stated: "The Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the Agency's current needs."

The agency also terminated temporary staff, known as term employees, who are on contracts that are set to last between two and four years, another source told BI.

An analyst on a two-year fellowship that began in June 2023 said she was informed of her firing in an email to her personal email address at around 7 pm on Thursday. By the time she got the termination letter, she'd already been locked out of her work email.

"I was at a party, and I found out through my coworkers first," she said.

The ex-employee's contract was set to end in June of this year, and she was exploring opportunities to stay at the agency. Now, she's most concerned with making sure she has health insurance.

"I have upcoming appointments, and I'm thinking, do I have to reschedule them? Do I have to schedule certain things earlier that aren't recommended by my doctor?" she said.

It's not clear how long terminated employees will be able to keep their health insurance.

The terminations follow CFPB's acting director, Russell Vought, directing all employees at the agency to stop working and obtain written permission to perform any of their duties.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said it had laid off roughly 400 federal employees.

"EPA has terminated 388 probationary employees after a thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump's executive orders. EPA has followed standard protocols and procedures, ensuring impacted staff received notification of their status," the agency said in a statement. "President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that."

The EPA employs roughly 15,000 people, according to its 2024 budget.

'Fork in the Road' offer in action

The mass layoff of probationary staff occurred one day after a federal judge allowed the administration to continue its deferred resignation program.

Known as the "Fork in the Road" offer, more than 2 million employees were given the choice in January to resign in exchange for pay and benefits until the end of September or remain in their roles without guarantee that they will keep their jobs. Over 75,000 employees took the buyout.

Multiple legal challenges have been raised in response to the flurry of executive orders from the Trump administration.

On February 7, a federal judge temporarily blocked the US Agency for International Development from placing 2,200 employees on paid leave. The block is set to end on Friday at midnight.

Lapcewich, the union representative for the US Forest Service, told BI that legal avenues are being explored in response to the latest layoff of probationary workers.

"All I can tell you is that legal issues are being pursued by union lawyers," he said.

Do you work at a federal agency? Share your experience and thoughts with these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected] or via Signal at alicetecotzky.05 and asheffey.97.

• Elon Musk appeared with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
• Musk defended the cuts being made by DOGE as "common sense."
• Musk said Americans are "going to get what they voted for."

Elon Musk appeared alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday to defend the cuts being made by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Musk, who leads DOGE, said the cuts being made by the agency were not "draconian" and that they represented "common sense" changes that would make government more efficient.

Trump and Musk addressed reporters shortly after the president signed an executive order to initiate "large-scale reductions" in the federal workforce and expand DOGE's power to oversee the hiring of career officials by federal agencies.

The executive order said agencies would be required to hire "no more than one employee for every four employees that depart," adding that the cuts and hiring ratio would not apply to roles related to "public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement."

The order also said hiring decisions by agency heads should be made in partnership with a "DOGE Team Lead." It said no vacancies should be filled if the DOGE member decides it's unnecessary unless an agency head determines the position should be filled.

Musk, who was joined by his son X, reiterated his stance that Americans voted for the changes DOGE is making. "They're going to get what they voted for," he said.

"And if you have the rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is actually in charge then what meaning does democracy actually have," Musk said. "If the people cannot vote and have their will decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president, and the Senate, and the House then we do not live in a democracy."

Trump questioned why federal judges would seek to block some of DOGE's efforts.

"Now, a judge who is an activist judge wants to try to stop us from doing this," Trump said. "Why would they try to do this? I campaigned on this."

Musk previously wrote on X that a federal judge should be impeached after a ruling temporarily blocked DOGE staff from accessing sensitive Treasury Department files. Vice President JD Vance and leading congressional Republicans have said judges are exceeding their authority by reining in DOGE workers, suggesting that Trump might just simply ignore their rulings.

Reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday asked Musk repeatedly about DOGE's transparency and how the world's richest man is navigating potential conflicts of interest for his array of companies, which have collectively received billions in federal contracts over the years.

Musk said that DOGE is "as transparent as possible." He pointed to the updates the outfit posts on its official X account. He also said that DOGE posts about its activities on its official government site, though, as of Tuesday afternoon, DOGE.gov contains no new information.

"All of our actions are maximally transparent," Musk said.

A DOGE spokesperson recently declared that DOGE falls under the Presidential Records Act, meaning that Musk and his staff's work could remain private for years to come.

• Federal courts have already trimmed Donald Trump and Elon Musk's sails.
• But judges have surprisingly little recourse if Trump and Musk defy their rulings.
• If anyone is punished for such defiance, it likely won't be the president.

Federal judges keep ruling against President Trump, but they have no real power to enforce their decisions.

"The president has much more force at his disposal than do the courts," Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf told Business Insider.

For instance, despite a federal court order Monday barring the administration's spending freeze, numerous Environmental Protection Agency programs remain inaccessible to their intended recipients. US District Judge John McConnell said state agencies have a "rightful concern" that they still couldn't access some programs.

Constitutional law experts warn that if a president chose to defy court orders, judges would have limited options. The consequences would likely fall on lower-level officials, not the president himself, said Michael J. Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill.

"At the very least, you would have a possible contempt citation directed at a particular official who has refused to comply with a court order," Gerhardt told BI, "If they indicate they are defying it because of his order, then the court is going to include the president in the citation of contempt."

But enforcing even that would fall to the Justice Department — which answers to Trump.

Gerhardt pointed to recent examples of Trump testing limits: The president fired inspectors general without providing Congress the legally required notification and list of reasons for dismissal.

Some in Trump's orbit have previously said the president should actively confront the judiciary. Long before he was elected last November, Vice President JD Vance argued that Trump should forge ahead with bold actions and dare federal judges who try to stand in his way.

"I think that what Trump should, like, if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state," Vance said in 2021 on a podcast. "Replace them with our people. And when the courts — because you will get taken to court — and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'" (Many historians believe Andrew Jackson likely never said that.)

Presidents have expressed their displeasure with court rulings, but fundamentally ignoring a federal judge is another matter.

Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School, said that judges are likely to look unfavorably on any deliberate actions to defy their rulings.

"To the extent the administration's actions are viewed as improvisational, erratic, or deliberately pushing previously settled boundaries in a haphazard way, that would make any normal judge — regardless of personal politics — skeptical," Paradis told BI.

Behind the apparent disorder, Gerhardt sees a deliberate strategy.

"Part of Trump's strategy is to manifest that defiance in many ways, so it becomes very difficult to keep track of all of them," he said, "We're not just talking about one thing, it's many things. And I think one reason why there are many things is because it overwhelms the system."

• Elon Musk said the Department of Government Efficiency actions would be "very open and transparent."
• Many questions remain about the extent and details of DOGE's work.
• DOGE.gov contains no information about the group's actions.

Elon Musk said that his Department of Government Efficiency would provide "maximum transparency." If DOGE gets its way, it will be nearly a decade before any of Musk's or his staffers' emails will be publicly available.

On Wednesday evening, DOGE advisor Katie Miller wrote on X that Musk's group is protected by the Presidential Records Act. Under that act, DOGE records would remain sealed until 2034, five years after Trump leaves office and eight years after DOGE is set to disband.

Musk and DOGE likely won't have the last word

Jason R. Baron, Professor at the University of Maryland and former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, said the established precedence comes down not to a White House decision but to a legal test. If DOGE is found not to be only advising and assisting Trump, then it would fall under the Freedom of Information Act. In that instance, Musk's records could become public almost immediately.

Baron said that Musk's and DOGE's actions thus far, including his role in restructuring the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), show that DOGE will probably lose its fight to keep its work behind closed doors.

"They are acting more like an agency than an entity that solely advises and assists the president," he told Business Insider.

It's likely that a legal fight will soon ensue after pending FOIA requests, including those from BI, are denied.

Musk was once a staunch pro-transparency proponent

Miller's announcement contrasts Musk's previous statements that virtually all government information should be public, with only exceptions for extremely sensitive information.

"The strong bias with respect to government information is to make it available to the public," Musk said at an October 18 event in Pennslyvania.

"Let's be as fully transparent as possible," he added. "Unless it's like a massive risk to the country, we don't want to give like exact instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb or something like that, but unless there is a genuine risk to the country, all information in the government should be public."

At the same pre-election town hall, Musk said the federal government, in general, needed to be far more transparent about its actions. He cited the need for Freedom of Information Act requests. Journalists have complained that getting agencies to comply with such requests often requires the threat of, if not actual, legal action.

On November 3, Musk reiterated his view on X.

"There should be no need for FOIA requests," Musk wrote, quoting a video clip of his town hall comments. "All government data should be default public for maximum transparency."

Miller's statement means DOGE would not be subject to the very information act requests that Musk said should be unnecessary to begin with.

DOGE might face other problems now

Her statement could also create more problems for DOGE, Baron said. By applying the Presidential Records Act to itself, DOGE has now created an obligation to preserve all records and messages from Musk and others in the group.

"An irony here is that by DOGE declaring itself a presidential component of the EOP, this means that it has actually increased its record-keeping obligations under the law and has no discretion to delete or destroy any record it creates or receives related to government business," Baron told BI. "That is because all presidential records are considered permanent records of the US to be eventually transferred to NARA, and this would include all records created on Slack or other messaging systems its staff will use."

Before Trump took power, Musk outlined broad ambitions for DOGE. During an event on October 26, Musk said that DOGE would be "very transparent" about its work. He told Pennsylvanians at the event that DOGE would publicly detail the issues, if any, with how taxpayer money would be spent.

"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" Musk wrote on X on November 12, replying to a list of suggestions for DOGE.

As of Thursday, DOGE's official website remains a landing page. Occasionally, the group has posted updates on its official X account, which are broad summaries of canceled contracts and leases. In the same November X post, Musk said there would be "a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars." No such leaderboard has been announced.

On its X account, DOGE has claimed credit for canceling consulting contracts with government agencies, terminating leases on "underutilized buildings," and cutting funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion operations across the federal government.

However, much of the information about DOGE has come from media leaks, or current or former federal workers who detail what Musk's team is up to via unofficial updates on subreddits.

Musk, however, has so far not fully followed through on applying that same type of transparency to DOGE.

Business Insider recently reported that some DOGE members aren't sharing their last names with federal workers. Scott Amey, the general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, previously told Business Insider that transparency is about maintaining public trust.

"We can't have officials hiding in the dark and not being accountable for their work," Amey said.

The White House did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. A DOGE advisor also did not respond to questions.

• The USAID has become one of Elon Musk's top targets in his bid to cut government spending.
• Musk's moves to dismantle federal agencies like USAID are totally illegal, constitutional law experts say.
• Congressional authority is needed to shut down a federal agency, the experts said.

Elon Musk's efforts to scrap federal government agencies like the US Agency for International Development are indisputably illegal, constitutional law experts say.

Without congressional action, Musk — the billionaire tech titan who is now serving in the Trump administration — nor President Donald Trump, has the legal authority to do so, the experts told Business Insider. And so far, the Republican-controlled Congress has taken no public action to push back against the move.

The humanitarian aid agency known as USAID announced on Tuesday it was set to place nearly all of its direct-hire workforce around the globe on administrative leave at the end of the week, just a day after Musk said in an X post that he "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper."

"Elon Musk's claim that he has President Trump's go-ahead to shut down USAID is flatly illegal and unconstitutional," said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor.

"In our system of government, only Congress wields the power of the purse and the power to create or destroy entire agencies to disburse the money the government collects in taxes or borrows from bondholders," said Tribe.

Not even the president has the unilateral authority to take an ax to federal agencies the way Musk says he is, the legal scholar said.

"The president cannot do this directly and so he can't delegate any authority to do it to Musk or anyone else," Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf said.

As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, Musk, with the backing of Trump, has made it his newfound mission to reduce spending by the federal government — and USAID has become one of Musk's top targets.

President John F. Kennedy initially created USAID through an executive order in 1961, and Congress later formally established it as an independent agency through the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.

"Congress could cancel it, but the president can't unilaterally shutter it," Dorf said of USAID, adding, "This is blatantly unlawful and a violation of Trump's oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed."

Earlier this week, the US State Department announced that Trump has appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting administrator of USAID.

The State Department said in a statement that Rubio "notified Congress that a review of USAID's foreign assistance activities is underway with an eye towards potential reorganization."

Rubio wrote in a letter to Congress: "The Department of State and other pertinent entities will be consulting with Congress and the appropriate committees to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices, and missions of USAID."

As for whether the Trump administration can legally reorganize USAID, Roderick Hills, an NYU School of Law professor who researches administrative and constitutional law, told BI that is also against the law.

"Certain statutes have, from time to time, given presidents narrow and time-limited re-organization powers, but none of them give President Trump any power to reorganize the USAID," Hills said. "In fact, the statutory background to USAID makes it perfectly clear that President Trump's actions here violate federal law."

USAID was designed to operate independently

Congress designed USAID to operate independently of the State Department, Tribe told BI. "There is no legal loophole they can invoke to make their actions lawful," he said.

The legal expert said that apparent inaction by the GOP-led Congress on the matter suggests that Republicans in control of Congress are "afraid" of being confronted with Musk's "limitless riches."

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Musk's role as head of DOGE and his efforts to cut government spending, arguing that the executive branch is acting "within the scope of their authority."

Johnson said Republicans would "vigorously defend" Congress' role in government. "But what's happening right now is a gross overreaction in the media to what is happening," Johnson said.

"The executive branch of government in our system has the right to evaluate how executive branch agencies are operating," he said. "It's not a power grab."

A slew of Democratic lawmakers, on the other hand, have sounded the alarm.

"USAID was created by federal law and is funded by Congress. Donald Trump and Elon Musk can't just wish it away with a stroke of a pen — they need to pass a law," Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said.

James Gardner, a professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law, told BI that Congress has given USAID many functions by statute, "and it is not up to anyone but Congress to decide that it should not perform the functions Congress has instructed it to perform."

"The Constitution designates the president as the chief enforcer of the law, not the maker of laws," Gardner said.

Though experts say the effort to disband USAID is illegal, it does not mean it can't happen.

Trump told reporters on Monday that shutting down USAID "should have been done a long time ago" and said he did not think the move would need approval by Congress.

A White House official insisted in a statement to BI on Wednesday that federal law was being adhered to.

"DOGE is fulfilling President Trump's commitment to making government more accountable, efficient, and, most importantly, restoring proper stewardship of the American taxpayer's hard-earned dollars," the official said. "Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities."

While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump clarified Musk's power, saying the Tesla and SpaceX CEO can't make any moves without the green light from his administration.

"Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval," the president said. "And we'll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won't."

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. The State Department declined to comment and instead referred BI to recent statements by Rubio and the White House.

• Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that the US will suspend plans for 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.
• Trump later confirmed the deal.
• For now, a vast North American trade war is on hold.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced that the US's plan to impose 25% tariffs will be on hold for at least 30 days.

Trudeau's announcement on X comes just hours after President Donald Trump brokered a similar pause with Mexico, effectively halting a trade war between the US and its neighbors for now.

"Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together," Trudeau posted on X.

Trump later confirmed the temporary trade truce. He wrote on Truth Social that Canada had "agreed to ensure we have a secure Northern Border, and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like Fentanyl that have been pouring into our Country."

"As President, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL Americans, and I am doing just that," Trump wrote. "I am very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured. FAIRNESS FOR ALL!"

The two leaders focused on Canada's $1.3 billion border plan. The initial announcement of the massive investment was made in December.

Trump has said that tariffs are needed to get Mexico and Canada to address the flow of fentanyl into the US. In his statement, Trudeau said Canada would be implementing a $1.3 billion border plan that would involve "reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl."

He said that Canada would be devoting nearly 10,000 personnel to protect the border, and that Canada is committing to appointing a Fentanyl Czar, among other actions.

Over the weekend, Trudeau laid out a plan for more than $100 billion in retaliatory tariffs if Trump did not relent. Canada's list of tariffed goods targeted Trump's political base, covering everything from Florida oranges and Kentucky bourbon to appliances made in Vice President JD Vance's home state of Ohio.

Elon Musk wasn't immune from the fallout. Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote on X that he would be "ripping up the province's contract" with Space X's Starlink.

Canada's first retaliatory tariffs were set to go into effect Tuesday. Additional measures were expected to apply to US tech exports, which were absent from the first list.

During Trump's first term, nations designed tariffs to inflict political damage. Kentucky bourbon was frequently targeted due to Sen. Mitch McConnell's status as Senate Majority Leader.

In recent weeks, Trump and his allies have repeatedly criticized Canada. Before taking office, Trump said that the US biggest trade partner should be the 51st state. Trump's taunts came during a difficult time for Trudeau.

The Canadian leader's popularity collapsed before he announced last month that he would resign as prime minister once the Liberal Party selects a new leader.

This story is developing.

• President Trump is steering the federal government in a distinctly conservative direction.
• Upon entering office for his second term, he signed a slew of executive orders to achieve this goal.
• There are many key dates to look out for as the administration rolls out its agenda.

Roughly a month into his second term, President Donald Trump's sweeping agenda has started to take shape, with the president signing executive orders on everything from return-to-office mandates to tough immigration measures.

For weeks, the threat of tariffs loomed, and while Trump announced on February 1 that he'd enact them for imports from Canada and Mexico, the tariffs for both countries were paused on February 3 for at least 30 days.

Here's a look at some of the key dates for initiatives and plans put into place by the Trump administration:

Feb. 1, 2025: Tariffs enacted for Canada, China, and Mexico

Shortly after the November general election, Trump vowed to impose 25% tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico, two of the United States' leading trading partners.

Trump said both countries have allowed drugs and migrants to pour into the US, which ties squarely into the president's hard-line stance on immigration issues.

Trump also floated a 10% across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods.

On Feb. 1, the president followed through on his pledge, enacting the tariffs for all three countries.

As part of his executive orders, Canadian energy products would have a 10% tariff rate.

Feb. 3, 2025: Trump pauses tariffs for Canada and Mexico

Trump on Feb. 3 agreed to a 30-day pause on his administration's tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said they'd enact security plans at their respective borders with the US. Sheinbaum said she'd send 10,000 of her country's national guard troops to the border in an effort to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US. And Trudeau said that Canada would appoint a fentanyl czar and bolster intelligence-gathering efforts regarding the flow of illicit drugs, among other directives.

Feb. 4, 2025: China responds with tariffs on select US imports

Beijing on Feb. 4 responded to Trump's tariffs on China by imposing a 10 percent tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, pickup trucks, and some large cars.

China is also targeting the US by imposing an additional 15 percent tariff on coal and natural gas.

Feb. 6, 2025: Deadline for federal workers to accept buyout

The Office of Personnel Management on Jan. 28 issued a letter offering all federal employees payouts and giving them a Feb. 6 deadline to accept the offer.

Federal employees who accepted the administration's offer by the deadline "will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason)," the letter on the OPM's website read.

The buyout offer came as Trump has quickly sought to not only reduce the size of the federal workforce but also install loyalists in key positions within the government.

The Trump administration in February announced that roughly 77,000 federal workers accepted the offer.

On Feb. 12, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the administration could proceed with its buyout offer after three federal employee unions filed a lawsuit on behalf of their members to halt the buyout program.

The administration then promptly closed the window for any additional federal employees to accept the offer.

Feb. 7, 2025: First jobs report under Trump

The first employment situation report under Trump's second term was released on Feb. 7, with the the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that 143,000 jobs were created in January.

Since Trump's second term began on Jan. 20, the bulk of the report featured employment data from former President Joe Biden's last month in office.

In January 2025, the unemployment rate in the US sat at 4%, a slight decrease from the 4.1% unemployment rate recorded in December 2024.

Feb. 7, 2025: Agencies should have plans for federal workers to come back to the office

The Trump administration set the date of Feb. 7 for federal agencies to have plans for how they'll adhere to the president's return-to-work order for employees.

The implementation plans are expected to be vetted and approved by the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget.

March 7, 2025: First jobs report for Trump for his first full month in office

The February jobs report, which will include Trump's first full month in office, will be released on March 7.

Trump ran on tamping down inflation and lowering food costs, as well as making the broader economy more prosperous for a wide swath of Americans. It'll still be incredibly early in Trump's term when the report is released, but the report could set the tone for how he messages his economic policies throughout the rest of the year.

March 21, 2025: Deadline to eliminate most DEI offices and positions

On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order to end "illegal and immoral discrimination" Biden-era programs implemented to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Trump and many of his Republican allies have rallied against DEI initiatives. Their pressure campaign has begun to spill over into corporate America, with top companies like Target rolling back some diversity-focused efforts.

Some agencies have already put employees on paid leave. Officials are also submitting lists of names to the White House, Government Executive reported.

By late March, Trump's EO calls for each agency head to the maximum extent allowed by the law to carry out the terminations of covered positions and programs.

April 5, 2025: End of a 75-day extension of the TikTok ban

Trump on Jan. 20 signed an executive order to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days, which would allow further efforts to find a US buyer for the highly popular social media platform.

The end of the 75-day period would be April 5, 2025.

May 4, 2025: The first step in creating a US sovereign wealth fund

Trump fulfilled another campaign promise by taking the first step on February 3rd toward creating a US sovereign wealth fund.

His executive order gives the Treasury and Commerce secretaries 90 days to develop a plan for such a fund.

Billionaire investor Scott Bessent was confirmed to lead the Treasury Department in January. And Howard Lutnick, a billionaire businessman, was confirmed as Trump's commerce secretary in February.

Trump said such a fund could be used to buy TikTok.

There has been bipartisan agreement for a state-owned investment fund in the past. Biden's advisors previously explored the idea.

Sometime in 2025: GOP hopes to pass a reconciliation bill addressing tax cuts

Trump is pushing for Republicans to pass a massive reconciliation bill that would lower taxes, dramatically roll back green energy measures, and make cuts to safety net spending.

While cuts to Social Security or Medicare are very likely off limits in the plans, Democrats could find their political footing in critiquing whatever plan emerges from the GOP congressional leaders.

Republicans are divided in their approach to tackling Trump's legislative priorities.

House GOP leaders want to pass one big reconciliation bill that would allow for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and include roughly $300 billion in additional border and defense spending. However, Senate Republican leaders are aiming to pass a border security, military, and energy package first, with a second budget resolution focused on tax cuts to come later in 2025.

July 4, 2026: The Department of Government Efficiency will sunset

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has grand plans for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it aims to cut at least $1 trillion in spending from the federal budget.

While DOGE is still in the earliest stages of its work, the commission isn't designed to be a permanent fixture of Washington.

When Musk and onetime co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy wrote about DOGE in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year, they said the commission would be phased out next year — on July 4, 2026.

"There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud," the two men wrote at the time.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy's nephew, was nominated as HHS Secretary in Trump's Cabinet.
• Kennedy has espoused baseless, controversial views related to vaccines and public health.
• He ran for president in 2024 and is married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor Cheryl Hines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ties to one of America's most prestigious political dynasties and controversial views on public health have made him a prominent political figure.

Though he unsuccessfully ran for president in 2024, he later endorsed now-President Donald Trump and landed a Cabinet nomination. Trump said he would let Kennedy "go wild" on public health issues as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy's confirmation chances remain uncertain after a rocky hearing on Wednesday. He can only afford to lose three votes if all Senate Democrats and lawmakers that caucus with the party oppose his nomination.

Here's an overview of Kennedy's life, career, and controversies.

Early life and family

Robert F. Kennedy, 71, was born on January 17, 1954 in Washington, DC.

He is the third of 11 children born to Robert F. Kennedy, a US senator who was assassinated in 1968, and Ethel Kennedy, a human rights advocate. He is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1976. After briefly attending the London School of Economics, he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1982. He also earned a master's degree in environmental law from Pace University School of Law in 1987.

Legal and environmental career

In March 1982, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, whom JFK had previously appointed to lead the famous Southern District of New York, hired Kennedy as an assistant district attorney. Kennedy struggled to pass the bar exam and resigned in July 1983.

Months later, Kennedy would spark his largest legal scandal. While on the way to receive treatment in South Dakota for his addiction, a fellow passenger found him sick in an airplane's bathroom. Local authorities later found a small amount of heroin in his belongings. He faced up to two years in prison but was sentenced to probation and community service.

As part of his community service, he worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and was later connected with the Hudson River Fishermen's Association. Robert Boyle, founder of the New York environmental group, began to mentor Kennedy. The organization already had notched major legal victories, but Kennedy's star power would help take it to new heights.

Kennedy's environmental advocacy became the foundation of his fame. In 1999, Time Magazine named Kennedy one of its "Heroes for the Planet" as part of a series of reports on leading environmentalists.

In 2000, Boyle and other board members later resigned in protest over Kennedy's rehiring of a scientist who had previously been fired by Boyle and served time in federal prison after being convicted of violating wildlife protection laws.

"I think he's a despicable person," Boyle told Kennedy's unauthorized biographer in 2014.

While gaining fame, Kennedy began to notice problems with his voice. Kennedy was later diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition that affects muscles in one's voice box.

Anti-vaccine views

After years of environmentalism, Kennedy became the face of anti-vaccine advocacy.

In 2005, he wrote a piece for Salon and Rolling Stone that is now regarded as establishing him as a major player in spreading vaccine skepticism. Despite his claims of a major conspiracy over a mercury-based preservative that had already been "removed from all childhood vaccines except for some variations of the flu vaccine in 2001," according to STAT. Within days, Salon, which published the piece online, issued five corrections. In 2011, the site decided to retract the article entirely.

In 2022, he invoked the Holocaust at a rally opposing vaccine mandates, saying, "Even in Hitler's Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did." He later apologized, saying, "My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control."

At an event at a New York City restaurant in 2023, Kennedy said that COVID-19 was "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people" and that "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." He later released a statement on X saying, "I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews." He added: "I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered."

He has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories related to public health, including claims that WiFi causes cancer and that antidepressants marketed by pharmaceutical companies are to blame for mass shootings.

Controversies and criticism

There've been several controversies involving Kennedy and dead animals.

Kennedy's eldest daughter, Kick Kennedy, told Town & Country magazine in 2012 that her father had beheaded a dead whale and tied the head to the roof of their minivan when she was a child.

During a 2012 divorce deposition, Kennedy said that he experienced "cognitive problems" that a doctor told him could be "caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died," The New York Times reported. Kennedy told The New York Times in May 2024 that his memory issues had been resolved.

In August 2024, Kennedy revealed that he had left a bear carcass in Central Park in 2014 and speculated that it could have been the source of his brain worm.

Kennedy was also involved in an undisclosed relationship with a reporter. In September 2024, Status newsletter author Oliver Darcy broke the news that Kennedy was having an affair with New York magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi. Kennedy denied the report, but the relationship reportedly became an open secret in some circles as Kennedy bragged about receiving photos from Nuzzi.

Nuzzi was placed on leave and subsequently left the magazine.

2024 presidential campaign

In April 2023, Kennedy announced that he would run against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries. Numerous Kennedy family members opposed his campaign, and many endorsed Biden instead.

In October 2023, he switched his political party affiliation to independent.

He named Nicole Shanahan, a California attorney who founded the patent technology company ClearAccessIP, as his running mate in March 2024.

Kennedy dropped out of the race in August 2024 and endorsed Trump, saying that he was "surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues." Trump then chose Kennedy to lead his transition team along with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

After Trump won the 2024 election, he nominated Kennedy to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services in his Cabinet.

Personal life

Kennedy has been married three times and has six children.

He was married to his first wife, fellow University of Virginia law student Emily Black, from 1982 to 1994. They had two children, Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy III and Kathleen, known as "Kick."

He married his second wife, interior designer Mary Richardson, in 1994. They had four children — Conor, Kyra, Finn, and Aidan — and divorced in 2010.

Kennedy has been married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor Cheryl Hines since 2014. Hines' costar, Larry David, helped introduced the couple.

Together, Hines' and Kennedy's net worth was an estimated $15 million as of October 2023.

• The White House's pause on federal grants and loans appears to be over.
• A memo sent by Matthew J. Vaeth at the OMB on Wednesday says that the memorandum is no longer in effect.
• A federal judge later said that he would issue an order to block the freeze.

The White House's controversial federal grants and loans freeze appears to be over.

A memo sent by Matthew J. Vaeth at the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday, January 29, and addressed to the heads of executive departments and agencies, says that the memorandum is no longer in effect.

"OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the President's Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel," the memo, seen by Business Insider, reads. M-25-13 was the memo that the OMB, which oversees federal agencies and the federal budget, sent out Monday, pausing nearly all federal grants and loans.

On Wednesday afternoon, a federal judge said he intended to block the order after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the freeze was still in effect.

"I'm inclined to grant the restraining order," U.S. District Judge Jack McConnell, a Rhode Island-based appointee of President Barack Obama, said during a court hearing, according to Politico. "I fear that the administration is acting with a distinction without a difference."

Earlier, Leavitt confirmed that the OMB order had been withdrawn. She said Trump's earlier executive orders, which imposed a freeze on new regulations and terminated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, remain in effect.

"This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze," Leavitt wrote on X. "It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented."

Some Democratic lawmakers quickly took a victory lap, celebrating the OMB order's demise.

"This is Trump's first major loss. When we fight, we win," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote on X.

Other Democrats cautioned that just because the OMB order was rescinded does not mean the broader fight is over.

"I think all they know is they got a backlash they didn't expect, and so we're not assuming the rescission is to be taken as a resolution," Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told reporters at the Capitol. "So we're going to be on the floor tonight raising hell about this. I'm going to meet with my statewide Head Start programs right now. We're expecting that this battle is just beginning."

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said the White House may have exacerbated the situation.

"What that order may have been designed to do is circumvent the court order," Murphy told reporters. "So everybody read that memo and thought crisis averted. The crisis might have just deepened."

Murphy said the scope of Wednesday's White House order is unclear since OMB may have just rescinded the controversial order but not the underlying funding freeze.

Congressional lawmakers, including some Republicans, expressed confusion over the extent of the initial memo. Popular charities, including Meals on Wheels, were unclear if the federal grants they received would continue to keep money following. Lawyers advised NGOs to ensure they had enough cash to wait out the pause.

The Trump administration, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would test the extent of presidential power to cut federal spending unilaterally. He and his allies view a Nixon-era law as unconstitutional, and the initial OMB memo appeared to defy the law that leaves the executive branch only narrow grounds to refuse to spend funds approved by Congress.

• Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to test the limits of presidential power to cut spending.
• The OMB's order to pause all federal grants is effective at 5 pm Tuesday.
• Nonprofits are unclear about the scope of the order.

President Donald Trump has long promised to test the extent of presidential power to cut federal funding unilaterally. Monday night's Office of Management and Budget order pausing all federal grants, which congressional Democrats have called a constitutional crisis, fulfills that pledge.

"When I return to the White House, I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it," Trump said in a 2023 policy announcement video. "We will overturn it."

Legally, Congress has constrained the president's powers to ignore their wishes and not appropriate funds. The issue, known as impoundment, reached a boiling point during the Nixon administration, leading to the passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The act allows a president to withhold funds temporarily, but only if a president goes through a formal process that eventually allows lawmakers to disapprove of the action.

House Democrats impeached Trump in 2019 in part due to his temporary hold on Ukraine aid. He was later acquitted in the Senate.

Before DOGE was formalized, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that impoundment was central to the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to slash federal spending. (Ramaswamy recently left DOGE.)

Trump and his allies have criticized the impoundment act. Russel Vought, Trump's nominee to lead the OMB, recently testified to lawmakers that he agreed with Trump that the Nixon-era law was unconstitutional — a view not shared by most legal scholars.

A Reagan-era Office of Legal Counsel opinion found that there was "no textual authority" within the constitution for presidential impoundment power.

"Moreover, if accepted, arguments in favor of an inherent impoundment power, carried to their logical conclusion, would render congressional directions to spend merely advisory," the OLC opinion read.

Legal scholars view the OMB order as a vehicle through which Trump can try to put the act's constitutionality before the Supreme Court.

The extent of the OMB order remains unclear. A senior administration official said it was not simply an across-the-board funding freeze.

In the memo, acting OMB director Matthew Vaeth wrote that to the extent permitted under law, federal agencies must "temporarily pause all activities." The order has an exception for Social Security and Medicare and "assistance provided directly to individuals."

"Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal," Vaeth wrote.

Nonprofits immediately expressed fear that their funding could be affected. On Tuesday, a Meals on Wheels spokesperson told Business Insider they were unclear if the order affected their service of providing free meals to low-income seniors. Federal grants are behind numerous services, including SNAP benefits, rental assistance, and educational programs. Colleges and universities could also be affected if the pause applies to federal research grants.

• DeepSeek rattled tech and financial industries with the unexpected power of its AI model.
• The Chinese-based startup upended expectations that AI development requires significant investment.
• DeepSeek launched its ChatGPT competitor at a reported fraction of OpenAI's cost.

China's DeepSeek AI model rattled Wall Street and shocked Silicon Valley.

How Washington will respond remains uncertain, but early indications are that the groundbreaking news will not dramatically shift US policy.

"Hopefully, the release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win because we have the greatest scientists in the world," Trump said during a speech before House Republicans at their policy planning retreat.

Financial industry analysts and technology experts point to Trump's previous trade policy announcement, which laid out a plan for heightened export controls in an event like DeepSeek's rollout.

Trump's first term accelerated the rise of China hawks in the nation's capital. His administration went hard after Chinese tech companies like Huawei and laid the groundwork for a potential ban on TikTok, though he has waffled on the latter. President Joe Biden expanded those efforts.

TikTok wasn't the first showdown between the world's two largest economies over the future of technology. Here's how Deepseek will fit into the larger US-China fight.

What sets Deepseek apart from TikTok or even Huawei?

Both Trump and Xi view AI development as seminal to their nations' futures. In announcing a $500 billion AI project known as "Stargate" last week, Trump said the goal was for the US to continue to lead AI.

Gregory C. Allen, director of Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Xi has long focused on tech development. He cited some of the specific benchmarks laid out in his "Made in China 2025" plan, which was announced a decade ago. Two years later, China released its AI strategic plan, which called for Beijing to dominate the world in AI by 2030.

"The leaders in both the United States and China are convinced that leadership in artificial intelligence is foundational to the future of military and economic power," Allen told Business Insider. "And they're right."

How has the US responded to Chinese AI advances?

The first Trump administration imposed export controls on software and technology on Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Just before Trump left office in 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressured the Dutch government to block a company from making a semiconductor deal with China. In 2022, the Biden administration imposed export controls on advanced chips such as Nivida's H100 used to train AI models. In December, Biden expanded those limitations.

It remains to be seen what Trump will do. Allen and financial analysts have pointed to Trump's trade policy, which tasked the Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce to lead a review of US export controls "in light of developments involving strategic adversaries or geopolitical rivals."

Have US control efforts failed?

The current debate in Washington will likely focus on whether Biden-era export controls failed. If that's the case, then perhaps a debate will ensue over whether those limitations really matter.

Allen said this misses the point since export limitations are a lagging indicator. He added that the first round of Biden policies also allowed China to obtain more advanced chips than the White House may have anticipated.

"When you refuse to sell something to China in the future, it doesn't magically destroy everything that you sent to China in the past," he said.

Allen added that the Biden 2022 export controls still allowed Nivida to sell H800 chips legally, which meant China obtained crucial technology that had only degraded performance by a fraction of what the US intended. The exact chips, Allen said, DeepSeek claimed it used to train its R1 model.

"We are currently living through the poor design of the first package of AI chip export controls that the Biden administration launched in October 2022," he said. "But will soon be living through the lagging impact of the successful controls designed in October 2023."

Ed Mills, a Raymond James policy analyst, wrote in a research note that while there may be initial talk of easing control policies, the Trump administration will likely double down.

"While we expect to see a narrative emerge that DeepSeek proves the ineffectiveness of current export controls, it will most likely be interpreted by the Trump administration as a reason to tighten controls and further limit and track who has access to leading-edge technology," Mills wrote.

How has Beijing responded to US actions?

Chinese government officials repeatedly threatened to retaliate in the lead-up to the passage of the potential TikTok ban. Last March, a government official called efforts to force the social media app to sever ties "an act of bullying." It remains to be seen how Beijing will respond if a US-approved buyer is found.

In the past, Chinese media has pushed for tougher responses when the US and other Western nations moved to limit companies like Huawei.

Allen said the timing of the Deepseek announcement also fits within a larger theme of the China seeking to embarrass US leaders at critical times.

"I don't think it's a surprise that the model itself was released during the first week of the Trump administration," Allen said. "This was an attempt to have an impact on the US media discourse, the global media discourse and that's exactly what's happening."

What else has the US done about Chinese tech companies?

Under Trump and Biden, the federal government has taken multiple actions to curtail some of China's largest tech companies.

The first Trump administration moved to block Huawei from working with US companies. In 2022, the FCC banned US sales of new Huawei and ZTE-made devices, China's two largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. Huawei does little business in the US now.

Rubio, a longtime Huawei critic, pushed Latin American countries to follow the US' lead in banning the telecom giant from shaping the future of 5G.

Trump also kick started the discussion over banning TikTok. While little information is public, lawmakers have cited national security concerns related to TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.

As a 2024 presidential hopeful, Trump backed away from his previous support for banning TikTok if ByteDance failed to sever ties to Beijing. In one of his final acts in office, Biden declined to enforce the ban after TikTok failed to convince the US Supreme Court to delay its implementation. Trump has since granted an additional 75-day reprieve, though it is outside the law.

What effect will this have on the AI race?

In the near term, DeepSeek's success has undermined the belief that bigger is always better for AI development. The Chinese-based startup developed its R1 model at roughly $5.6 million, a drop in the bucket compared to what OpenAI, Meta, and other companies are spending.

"I think policymakers need to ask a lot of questions about what is happening," Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, told BI. "They need to understand how this company seemed to have made so much progress without spending a lot of money."

Marc Andreessen, the cofounder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote on X that is is AI's "Sputnik moment," a reference to the then-Soviet Union's early success in launching a satellite in 1957.

The Cold War advancement shocked the US, jump-starting the Space Race, which the Americans ultimately won by landing on the Moon just over a decade later.

• A Trump Justice Department official is threatening criminal probes to local officials.
• Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the DOJ will monitor officials who don't cooperate on immigration.
• President Trump repeatedly promised to begin "mass deportations" after retaking the White House.

A top Justice Department official on Wednesday made clear that federal authorities are watching local officials who defy President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who was previously part of Trump's private legal team, wrote in a memo to the entire Justice Department that "laws and actions that threaten to impede" Trump's actions harm "public safety and national security."

Bove's memo, published in full by The Washington Post, cites a new "Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group," within the DOJ that will work to "identify state and local laws, policies, and activities that are inconsistent with Executive Branch immigration initiatives and, where appropriate, to take legal action to challenge such laws."

A DOJ spokesperson confirmed the existence of Bove's memo to Business Insider but declined further comment.

Trump and congressional Republicans have long complained about states and cities that refuse to fully cooperate with federal immigration requests under so-called "sanctuary policies." The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have repeatedly sued over the legality of holding someone solely based on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request.

Some local officials, particularly Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have defended policies that require officers to not fully cooperate with federal officials.

On Tuesday, Trump wasted little time in implementing the immigration restrictions he ran on during the 2024 campaign. He moved to end birthright citizenship, a constitutional guarantee. Trump also formally declared that illegal immigration is a federal emergency, part of any effort to involve US troops in border security. A host of Democratic state attorneys generals quickly sued to block the birthright citizenship order, and other legal fights are expected to follow.

Business Insider has spoken to over a dozen immigration researchers and policy analysts across the political spectrum. Conservative-leaning researchers have defended Trump's policies, arguing there will be benefits from deporting a large number of people in the country illegally. Economists, particularly those on the left and center, have warned that mass deportations could cause economic calamities.

It is also expected that a full-scale mass deportation effort would cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars.

• Trump originally promised Elon Musk's DOGE would operate outside the government.
• But his executive order instead renamed the Obama-era US Digital Service, making DOGE part of the federal goverment.
• Experts say the approach swats down certain legal challenges while creating issues in other areas.

On November 12, Donald Trump announced Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," would "provide advice and guidance from outside of government" to help roll back bad regulations and slash government spending.

The DOGE that Trump created via executive order on January 20 looks almost nothing like that: it's officially a part of the White House and reports to chief of staff Susie Wiles, it will have the power to hire government employees, and its stated mission is to update the federal government's software and IT systems — a far cry from the vision Musk outlined of cutting up to $2 trillion in annual spending.

"I was disappointed to see the limited scope that DOGE is now responsible for," said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlements policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. "On the bright side, it may mean that it will be more likely to actually fulfill its mandate because it's more targeted."

Trump's executive order states DOGE will replace the US Digital Service, or USDS — a sort of technical special ops team created during the Obama administration after the meltdown of Healthcare.gov — and encompass a "temporary organization" that makes it easier to hire employees. Every federal department has to create a four-person team to liaise with the new office, which is supposed to wrap up its work by mid-2026.

"I think it's noteworthy that the announcement calls for an HR specialist, an attorney, an IT specialist, and then an overall manager to be placed in each of the applicable agencies," Craig Saperstein, a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who specializes in government relations, told Business Insider.

DOGE, he said, may still be focused on cutting regulations, changing workforce rules, and streamlining government operations.

The decision to put DOGE inside the federal government is "perhaps the result of the lawyers advising DOGE and the administration realizing that their proposed private structure for the DOGE would be subject to legal challenge," Caleb Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, told BI of the new structure. "It may be the necessary evil from their perspective, to avoid a court fight."

Now that DOGE is situated inside the government, it is subject to new transparency and ethical rules, Aimee Ghosh, another partner at Pillsbury, said, particularly around public information laws.

"There's more mechanisms to request it or demand it, or for outside groups to file litigation demanding access," she said, while noting it's still unclear how public information statutes will apply to DOGE.

Trump, Musk, and DOGE did not return requests for comment.

Limits on power

Being part of the government means Musk can't use his private fortune to fund DOGE's operations. Tom Schatz, whose group Citizens Against Government Waste criticizes federal spending, said that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The USDS has suffered from mission creep as its headcount has grown to more than 200 people, he said, while Musk's team has been reported to have a staff of about 20.

But Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, said there would be easy ways for Musk to get around those limits. The DOGE temporary organization is allowed to use volunteers and so-called special government employees who may not have to disclose information about their assets and income to ethics officials, he said.

The White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Government Ethics will likely weigh in on whether Musk or any DOGE staff will need to sell any assets or steer clear of discussions about certain agencies to avoid conflicts of interest. But Hedtler-Gaudette said those sign-offs aren't worth much because both offices are subject to political pressure.

"The overall framework of ethics and conflict-of-interest laws, rules, and regs we have on the books are extraordinarily weak," he said.

Since 2014, USDS has worked with federal agencies to help them improve how they deliver services, said Jen Pahlka, who helped create the office in 2013 and 2014. The agency was created with members of the team brought in to clean up the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov, and has since helped with tech rollouts like the IRS's widely praised Direct File program.

Congressional allocations for USDS have fluctuated, she said, and some people have criticized ethics waivers that have made it easier for USDS to recruit people from the private sector without forcing them to sell their stakes in venture-backed startups or investment funds. But she said ethics issues under Musk could be more significant than before.

"It does get politicized," she said. "I don't think to the extent that it will be now."

Were the DOGE lawsuits pointless?

At least three lawsuits filed shortly after Trump was sworn in challenged DOGE's compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law requiring outside advisory panels to meet publicly and include members from diverse ideological backgrounds. Earlier in January, the New York Times reported that two ethics experts who have criticized Trump, Virginia Canter and Norm Eisen, volunteered to be a part of DOGE, but were rebuffed by the Trump transition team.

It's unclear what will happen to those lawsuits now that DOGE has officially become part of the White House. But at least one group that sued said its lawsuit should still be able to move forward.

Trump's executive order "does not moot our suit," said Nandan Joshi, a lawyer at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, in an email. "Our lawsuit is based on information that the administration will ask a private task force to provide it with recommendations on regulatory and spending cuts without complying with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Nothing in the EO contradicts that information."

Kel McClanahan, a lawyer for another group that sued over DOGE, raised the possibility that there could be multiple organizations using the DOGE name, saying in an email that the executive order "muddied the waters."

"We don't have any reason to believe that the entity created by the recent Executive Order is the same animal as the advisory committee we are litigating about," he said. "The deciding factor will be what the new US DOGE Service actually does and how."

Another change from the DOGE envisioned in Donald Trump's announcement in November: Vivek Ramasamy isn't a part of it. "It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I'm confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government," Ramaswamy posted on X.

He is reportedly exploring a run for Ohio governor.

• President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day issued pardons for January 6 defendants.
• He'd pledged to grant clemency to at least some of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in 2021.
• About two-thirds of those charged with federal crimes had pleaded guilty as of January.

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned roughly 1,500 people related to January 6-related offenses, fulfilling a campaign promise to wipe clean the records of most people connected with the Capitol riot.

"We hope they come out tonight, frankly," Trump said after signing the pardons. "They're expecting it."

Trump said he included six commutations in the pardon package so that their cases could be studied further. Among those whose sentences were commuted were the leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who had been charged with seditious conspiracy. Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers' founder, was in the middle of serving an 18-year prison sentence.

Outside the commutations, Trump's pardon is sweeping in scope. It applies to "all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Earlier during the day, Trump told supporters that he was asked not to include mentions of January 6 "hostages" in his official inaugural address.

"I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because, you know, it is action, not words that count," Trump said during a speech to supporters in an overflow room at the US Capitol. "And you're going to be happy, because you're going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages."

During the presidential campaign, Trump described imprisoned January 6 defendants as "political prisoners," asserting they were "ushered in" to federal buildings by police.

Despite opposition from some prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, whom the rioters targeted, Trump had said that he would pardon many of the defendants.

He made an exception for those who are "evil and bad," as he told Time in April.

After Trump won the presidential election in November, January 6 defendants started filing motions to delay their hearings in the hopes Trump would pardon them once in office.

Several Proud Boys leaders asked Trump for pardons in November, two months before he was set to take office.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, he said he would "mostly likely" pardon convicted defendants "very quickly" upon taking office. He said then, too, that there may be exceptions.