Elon Musk’s DOGE website appears to have been hacked, with tech experts criticizing its lack of polish and calling it “completely slapped together.”
Musk, appointed head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by President Donald Trump, was given the responsibility of “dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing unnecessary regulations, cutting wasteful spending, and restructuring federal agencies.”
The website officially launched on Wednesday, February 12, with Musk vowing the department would be “maximally transparent.” This came after critics pointed out the irony of the world’s richest man overseeing cuts to government funding, while his own companies, like SpaceX, benefit from federal budgets.
“I don’t know of any organization more transparent than DOGE,” the Twitter owner remarked during a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office this week.
However, the website didn’t remain intact for long, as hackers targeted two of its pages on Friday, February 14, according to 404 Media.
One of the messages left on the site read: “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN – roro.”
Another message followed, saying: “This is a joke of a .gov site.”
Both messages have since been removed.
Web development experts told the tech news outlet that the DOGE site “feels like it was completely slapped together,” pointing out “tons of errors and details leaked in the page source code.”
The experts also speculated that the DOGE site may not be running on government servers.
Meanwhile, DOGE reportedly posted classified staffing information from a U.S. intelligence agency, according to HuffPost.
The website’s function allows users to “trace” their “tax dollars from the bureaucracy” and investigate Cabinet-level agencies and other departments to review staffing numbers and total wages earned.
A note on the page clarifies that the data excludes military, the Postal Service, the White House, and other intelligence agencies. However, DOGE’s database includes information about the federal agency responsible for U.S. intelligence satellites.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is the only intelligence agency featured on the website. Notably, Musk’s SpaceX holds a $1.8 billion contract with the NRO to build spy satellites.
In addition, SpaceX has secured around $15 billion in contracts with NASA, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest, particularly as DOGE is set to investigate NASA’s spending.
Regarding the potential conflict of interest between Musk’s role with DOGE and NASA, Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, emphasized that the agency has “very strict conflict of interest policies.” She added that NASA’s legal office would vet any DOGE employee for such conflicts, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Musk and his DOGE team have embarked on a cost-cutting campaign, resulting in the dismissal of thousands of federal employees, even as the department itself has seen a surge in spending.
Government records obtained by Fortune reveal that DOGE spent $6.75 million by January, and that figure has since risen to $14.4 million as of February 8.
