Trump just rebranded the U.S. Digital Service as ‘DOGE’
January 21, 2025
Trump just rebranded the U.S. Digital Service as ‘DOGE’
The U.S. Digital Service gets a new name. Will it get a new mission, too?
President Donald Trump has brought the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to life—simply by renaming an existing government agency.
The U.S. Digital Service (USDS) is now known as DOGE, due to an executive order Trump signed Monday that renamed the executive branch’s technology agency. The USDS website has not been updated at time of writing. A landing page at doge.gov displays its new logo, featuring a puppy holding an American flag.
The order states that federal agencies will each establish their own DOGE team comprised of a team leader, engineer, human resources specialist, and attorney who will coordinate with the USDS administrator. That administrator is tasked with starting a software-modernization initiative “to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems” and “promote interoperability” between agencies.
In short, the administration is co-opting USDS’s brand and infrastructure to form DOGE. This now makes the concept of DOGE sound less like the groundbreaking, red-tape-cutting initiative first conceived than it does the Digital Service agency under a new name with a mission to improve the federal government’s IT. Fast Company reached out to USDS asking if there is a plan to merge the two sites, and it did not respond by time of publication.
A PLAN TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY, 10 YEARS AND GOING
USDS originally launched in 2014 during President Barack Obama’s administration and created standards to guide federal web design. It also worked to overhaul the federal government’s 26,000 websites and cut through longstanding digital bureaucracy. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, launched the U.S. Digital Corps in 2021 to recruit young tech talent to government.
There are ways that the department could deliver on its mission to make government leaner and more cost-efficient through improvements to its tech and web infrastructure—say, by making the delivery of social security more efficient and less onerous. But to make services more efficient, you need greatly skilled people and great tech. Whether that happens remains to be seen.
DOGE’S EVOLUTION
Already, DOGE has taken on a different form than first envisioned by its original cochairs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (so different, in fact, that Ramaswamy has already departed DOGE to presumably pursue a run for Ohio governor). But back in November, Musk and Ramaswamy penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, explaining that DOGE would be an outside advisory group that would recommend government reforms and find $500 billion in annual spending to cut. And the name is a bit of a misnomer as only Congress has the power to create new government departments. Besides, it’s the acronym that tickles Musk—a bit of a wink, wink to the cryptocurrency Dogecoin of which he’s been a big fan.
But in that form, DOGE was already facing lawsuits. One group alleged that, as an outside advisory group, it would be operating as a federal advisory committee in violation of federal law. Which is why the new department, as described in the executive order, is becoming an official government agency and getting around that sticky terminology.
About the EO establishing DOGE, Musk succinctly responded on X, “Legit.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fast Company
(3)
