The New York Times reports:

Trump had announced the Department of Government Efficiency on Nov. 12 as an entity outside of government, but Mr. Musk quickly began to see problems with that — including the fact that it could be subject to public-record rules. He was also intent on getting access to federal data and payment systems. He felt that if he could not, the whole endeavor would be a waste of his time.

Several people involved in the talks were familiar with the White House digital office, including Mr. Smith, who had worked with the unit on a Covid database as a senior official in the first Trump administration. Mr. Musk was indifferent when the notion of taking it over was first floated, but warmed to the idea.

Eventually, Mr. Musk’s team settled on a plan but kept it a secret for weeks, even blindsiding some people working with him.

The operation would take over the U.S. Digital Service, which had been housed within the Office of Management and Budget, and would become a stand-alone entity in the executive office of the president. Mr. Musk would not be named the DOGE administrator, but rather an adviser to Mr. Trump in the White House.

An advantage of this complicated structure was secrecy. For all his talk about “transparency,” Mr. Musk was obsessed with confidentiality and fearful of leaks. If people filed lawsuits seeking disclosure of his emails or the operation’s records under the Freedom of Information Act, the arrangement would set the administration up to argue that such documents were exempt. In contrast with agencies like the Office of Management and Budget, FOIA does not apply to a president’s White House advisers or to White House entities that advise him but wield no formal power, like the National Security Council.

As he developed his strategy, Mr. Musk drew guidance on how the executive branch operates from Mr. Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller and his wife, Katie. The Millers had worked with Mr. Musk in between Mr. Trump’s terms, helping to guide his political spending behind the scenes. After the election, they became even more essential in helping him decode and navigate Mr. Trump’s world.

Mr. Musk also absorbed as much as he could about the budget process and the bureaucracy that he intended to dismantle from Mr. Vought, who had served as director of the powerful Office of Management and Budget in Mr. Trump’s first term.

Mr. Vought was seen as radioactive by some in Mr. Trump’s inner circle because of his association with the unpopular conservative initiative Project 2025. He was not on the initial list of people under consideration to be budget director — a list populated by corporate finance types.

But Mr. Vought and Mr. Musk hit it off when they met, along with Mr. Ramaswamy, at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 14. They were on the same wavelength in terms of taking the most extreme action possible. [Continue reading…]