Before Trump was inaugurated, the USDS administrator was Mina Hsiang. After she left, Ted Carstensen was the highest-ranking legacy USDS leader, but he resigned from the organization on February 6.
“After Ted resigned, we received no correspondence as far as who the head of this organization was,” says a current USDS employee, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
Some people WIRED spoke with at USDS view Amy Gleason, a former USDS official who served in the first Trump administration, as a liaison between legacy USDS, DOGE, and other agencies, but little is known about her official role. Steve Davis, a longtime Musk associate and the president of the Boring Company, is another name rumored to be formally leading DOGE. Davis has worked with Musk for years, and led the billionaire’s cost-cutting efforts when taking over Twitter, now X, in 2022. Davis went as far as sleeping in the Twitter HQ with his wife, Nicole Hollander, and their child. (Hollander is now a high-level General Services Administration official.)
“Steve Davis has always been articulated as the leader of DOGE, but when I ask if he’s the administrator, [managers] say we don’t know,” one former USDS employee tells WIRED. “When I ask if he’s the interim administrator, they say ‘we don’t know.’ They’ve said Brad Smith [a health care entrepreneur with ties to Davis] is serving in a chief of staff role.”
Meanwhile, as USDS staffers are trying to figure out who is running their agency, dozens of them have been laid off. Around 50 people out of USDS’s approximately 200 employees were fired on Friday. Sources tell WIRED that product managers, designers, and members of the talent team were hit the hardest, along with some engineers.
“No rhyme or reason. Literally in the middle of work,” another source said of the Friday night firings. “There are so many of us.”
“I have heard that our directors at USDS (legacy) still have not received any kind of list or justification for the intention to terminate emails sent Friday evening,” says another source at the agency.
Last week, multiple agencies were rocked by sudden layoffs. Dozens of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees were fired after receiving emails botching their names and roles. Later in the week, the entire CFPB team tasked with investigating big tech were terminated, a former CFPB official told WIRED. After the CFPB firings, other agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, terminated thousands of workers.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
While Musk’s DOGE workers have taken over at USDS for the last month, very few legacy employees have interacted with their new colleagues whatsoever. Earlier this month, WIRED reported that DOGE had built a “firewall” separating Musk’s team from the rest of the organization’s workforce. The only time legacy staff had a meeting with a representative from DOGE was on February 1 with Stephanie Holmes, who identified herself as the team’s new HR person.
The only other experiences legacy USDS staff have had with DOGE staff were their surprise one-on-one interviews with DOGE-affiliated engineers who refused to identify themselves during the first week of the Trump administration.