Federal workers worry that the Department of Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, is using AI to spy on them.
According to Reuters, Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that DOGE’s technologists are using artificial intelligence to spy on federal agencies to determine whether there is any hostility and disloyalty toward President Donald Trump. In addition, sources tell the publication that DOGE is also using the Signal app to communicate, which violates federal record-keeping rules because the messages disappear over time.
The technology is already being used at the Environmental Protection Agency, Fortune reports.
The latest moves allegedly from DOGE are consistent with the Trump administration’s plans of recruiting Trump loyalists to federal jobs. During Trump’s first term between 2017 and 2021, Trump often butted heads with key appointees overseeing intelligence, national security, and law enforcement agencies, which has allowed Trump to bend “longstanding norms in pursuit of his conservative agenda,” Reuters points out.
“We’re in an unprecedented time with regard to how the government is operating at the moment and what the federal sector looks like,” Sarah Block, a partner at employment law firm McGillivary Steele Elkin, told Fortune.
“The government may have always been able to look at your email if you’re a government employee,” she said. “But I think agencies were not doing that—they could, but they weren’t.”
The latest move from DOGE comes as the Trump administration and Musk have fired thousands of federal workers, attempted to cancel union contracts with federal employees, and significantly reduced or canceled funding that Congress appropriated under previous administrations.
Federal employees have always been subjected to public-records laws, so most expect their emails to be monitored. But what’s concerning is that DOGE could be looking to fire people based on their political affiliations or feelings, which would be breaking the law.
“It’s a prohibited personnel practice to discriminate against someone for partisan political reasons,” said Block. “It’s essentially political discrimination.”
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