We and a wide array of allies are trying to make the chaos of DOGE intelligible to the people who have the most to fear from its pro-corporate reign of terror.
Contributions by Xaver Clarke, Will Royce, Chris Lewis, Henry Burke, Toni Aguilar-Rosenthal, & Kenny Stancil.
This newsletter was originally published on our Substack. Read and subscribe here.
This week, Trump and Musk have continued to fire federal workers and upend the balance of power in Washington at breakneck speed.
At the US Department of Agriculture, they’ve continued their attack on food safety by threatening cuts at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a unit that works closely with the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). (We highlighted hiring interruptions at FSIS in last week’s newsletter.) This latest blow to food safety protections is incredibly dangerous, threatening to exacerbate the spread of deadly pathogens in a moment where H5N1 (“bird flu”) spread is already getting worse.
Why should people care? Well, the odds are strong that people will die because some ignorant Silicon Valley figures know nothing about food safety.
Additionally, ABC News reported Saturday that 15,000 firings have been threatened at the IRS. Cutting IRS spending is a blatant move by Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies to attack government capacity to collect tax revenue from the wealthy, not to save anyone money, given past CBO estimates that every $1 increase in IRS spending results in a $5-9 increase in money collected. How will this be paid for? Either greater debt or reduced expenditures to protect people from harm. Not good times!
As Trump and Musk continue to recklessly wield the power of the executive branch, disregarding judicial and legislative checks in hopes that efforts to stop them will move too slowly, there are steps we’d like to see those in power taking. For instance, a minority party in the Senate does have the power to convene informal but informative hearings on critical issues, like food safety, air safety, and corruptly motivated executive overreach, to drive attention and action. Democratic senators on committees should lean into this oversight role, bringing energy and transparency to the disorienting depth and breadth of calamities occurring across the federal government every day of this second Trump administration.
In conjunction with many other forces in civil society, we at Revolving Door Project are working to stay on top of these shifts—and to create tools to keep our followers up to date, too. In that spirit, this week’s newsletter lists a number of trackers and related tools we’ve been working on. We hope these tools can support our readers’ and our broader networks’ efforts to track what’s going on and resist the onslaught of Trump-Musk power grabs.
(And, as we said last week, we welcome support in populating these tools with examples—don’t hesitate to send tips and news flags our way: [email protected].)
Revolving Door Project Trackers
- The People Reportedly Working For DOGE. We’re compiling the names of people who media reports indicate have been involved with DOGE, since despite Musk’s stated ambition of transparent government, DOGE is anything but.
News organizations like the Washington Post and ProPublica are working diligently to confirm the identities of DOGE personnel. Indeed, both organizations put out their own DOGE personnel trackers—both of which we highly recommend—though our tracker draws from a range of sources and includes people who were involved in the DOGE transition planning and have since left or been pushed out.
We are also putting out more comprehensive profiles of the individuals working for DOGE. - No Corporate Cabinet. The No Corporate Cabinet website is a hub for some of the work we have done on the new administration and the corporate influence it reflects. We are showcasing the hypocrisy of the Trump-right spending years campaigning on a pseudo populist message of “draining the swamp,” but filling the administration with self-dealing corporate bigwigs. The Trump Administration is the best case against the revolving door, because Trump is giving big fat goodies to Wall Street, Big Tech, and the defense industry via an executive branch literally run by people from Wall Street, Big Tech, and the defense industry.
- DOGE Hit List. Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have made headlines and sparked controversy as they sweep through the federal government. As media outlets continue to monitor DOGE, the Revolving Door Project has compiled a growing list of agencies that Musk and his team have reportedly visited in the early weeks of the second Trump administration.
- Trump Admin Non-Adherence to Court Orders. Despite multiple judges pausing the Trump administration’s spending freeze, critical programs and services reliant on federal funding remain closed. The administration’s ongoing disregard for court orders is causing immediate harm, with layoffs and cut medical services among the real consequences felt by Americans. The Revolving Door Project is actively tracking notable examples of disrupted programs and services.
- Laws Elon Musk Has Ignored. Whether or not he’s technically leading DOGE, it’s clear he’s running the show. Along with his own team featuring college-aged white supremacist computer programers, Musk has imbued DOGE with his longstanding disregard for the rule of law. In an attempt to show his longstanding willingness to flout the law, we have put together a tracker of all of his and his companies’ issues with the law and regulatory agencies.
From immigration law to EPA regulations, public health rules, worker safety and more, Musk has disregarded it all, enabled at every step by a justice system too cowardly to hold powerful men to account.
- Enforcement Capacity Tracker. The Enforcement Capacity Tracker (site coming soon!) will list examples of cuts to the staffing, budget, and overall capacity of federal agencies with the power to investigate corporate wrongdoing and industry-driven threats to people’s safety. This tool will complement things like our friends at Public Citizens’ Corporate Enforcement Tracker—a list of over 300 legal cases and investigations underway against corporations driven by various federal agencies—by looking at how agencies are staffed, and what their capacity to bring future enforcement actions against corporations can be projected to be.
Democracy Labs: An Invitation to Collaborate
Our friends over at Democracy Labs (DemLabs) do excellent work. Subscribe and give them a follow on Substack, Bluesky, and X/Twitter.
DemLabs specializes in using innovative storytelling techniques to advance the cause of social justice. A few weeks ago, DemLabs cofounder Deepak Puri published a storymap to visualize Elon Musk’s ongoing coup. Last week, we shared “DOGE’s Hit List”—our compendium of every agency reportedly visited by Musk’s DOGE agents—with Deepak, and he proceeded to use our research to update his map, along with an accompanying blog (and Substack post).
The storymap now includes more of the federal buildings that have been visited, infiltrated, or taken over by DOGE as President Donald Trump and Musk, his unelected mega-billionaire henchman, carry out their deadly and unpopular assault on the regulatory state.
We are eager to collaborate with others! If you or someone you know has skills that can be put to good use—maybe you’re a cartoonist, podcaster, or videographer—get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re hoping that there might be some volunteers out there who, instead of doom-scrolling, want to harness their creativity to help defeat Trumpism by effectively communicating its deleterious consequences.
Follow the Revolving Door Project’s work on whatever platform works for you! You can find us on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
Trump Disavowed Project 2025, So Stop Saying There is a Mandate for DOGE
The Dire Consequences For A Society With No Department of Education
Tracking The Trump and Musk Administration
Elon Musk Didn’t Start Flouting The Law With DOGE
Corruption Calendar Week 4: Messrs.Trump And Musk Want You To Know The Presidency Is For Sale
Tracking the DOGE Treasury Raid
Questioning Bessent on the DOGE Treasury Raid
The Rick Smith Show – February 12, 2025
Trump’s Education Pick Bankrolled Efforts to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Rogan’s List – February 13, 2025
Dark Money PLOT to UNDERMINE Courts With Trump Presidency EXPOSED
Trump’s CFTC pick Brian Quintenz gets crypto’s foot in the revolving door
Elon Musk isn’t in charge of DOGE or even an employee of it, White House says