Officials have been blindsided by DOGE’s actions. But the president’s strong support of the group means other advisers have limited options.

Top treasury officials have complained about disruption. The secretary of state has pushed back on staff cuts. Inside the Education and Health and Human Services departments, political appointees have been informed — not consulted — about canceled grants and contracts, sometimes learning about decisions from the media.

Elon Musk’s aggressive tactics to reshape the federal government have irritated and blindsided many senior officials in the Trump administration, including those tasked with running Cabinet departments being squeezed by his U.S. DOGE Service, according to interviews with more than 30 current and former officials and their advisers, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Amid these bubbling tensions, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles personally asked Musk last week to better coordinate on DOGE’s sweeping actions.

The broad goals of Musk’s team at DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, are shared not just by President Donald Trump but also by most of his senior advisers, who also want to shrink the government through unilateral cuts. And yet agency heads whom Trump chose are finding themselves caught off guard by DOGE’s actions and forced to reverse, mitigate or answer for some of its most disruptive moves. While working to win Senate confirmation to be health and human services secretary, for instance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had to reassure GOP senators he would reexamine DOGE-driven cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, told senators that she, too, would investigate cuts at her department.

DOGE’s blitzkrieg across the federal government has sparked deep concern among civil servants, who have been targeted for layoffs and required to implement policies they see as unwise, if not illegal. But Trump’s political appointees are quietly expressing unease with Musk as well.

“Basically every Cabinet member is sick of him, but nobody feels like they’re in a position to do anything about it,” said one person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with several incoming secretaries or their staffs. “People are afraid to cross him even as he’s wreaking havoc on their agencies.”

Trump, though, has made clear that he supports Musk. And none of the tensions with other appointees seem significant enough to block DOGE’s work.

In a joint interview aired on Fox News on Tuesday, Trump lavished praise on the billionaire and said Musk was ensuring his orders were not watered down by federal workers.

One of Trump’s few known complaints about Musk came after an Oval Office session last week to which Musk brought his toddler, who interrupted and gestured playfully while the men spoke with reporters, two people familiar with the matter said.

“When you sign these executive orders, a lot of them don’t get done,” Trump said on Fox. He said Musk would make sure they are implemented as intended: “Some guy that maybe didn’t want to do it, all of a sudden, he’s signing.”

The 78-year-old president and 53-year-old magnate have been seen together constantly since Trump’s victory in November. Musk has interviewed Cabinet picks, taken questions from reporters alongside the president and even joined Trump’s calls with world leaders. And he has made powerful allies in Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, and his wife, Katie Miller, who has worked on behalf of DOGE.

In court filings, the White House has stated that Musk has no “actual or formal” authority to make decisions and is not a DOGE employee. In practice, however, DOGE’s ability to act even without prior approval from Cabinet secretaries illustrates how much power Musk has accrued.

“If you’re a generic Cabinet secretary, you might be looking at DOGE as limiting your ability to manage your agency, or feel you’ll look like a fool if you say X and DOGE does Y. You might find that annoying, and that’s understandable,” said Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a think tank that promotes free markets. “But Trump likes the fact that these Cabinet heads don’t have carte blanche to do whatever they want and that Musk gives them another set of eyes at the agencies. That’s what the president wants, and he’s entitled to run the executive branch that way.”

But the extent of Musk’s ability to execute sweeping changes without approval or input from department heads appears to be unprecedented — and unsettling for the Cabinet.

“Why do you want to be a Cabinet secretary if you can’t run your own agency and the president and Elon Musk run your agency for you? That doesn’t seem like a great job to me. It’s very unusual. We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a right-leaning think tank. “These uncoordinated efforts have downsides — you have the secretaries and DOGE at cross-purposes, and that doesn’t serve anyone well.”

A White House spokesman said there’s no tension between Musk and other officials, and other Trump officials downplayed any disagreement.

“The entire Trump administration is aligned on delivering on President Trump’s agenda to streamline our bloated government and make it more efficiently serve the American people,” spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. “DOGE is working hand in hand with the White House and federal agencies to identify and slash waste, fraud, and abuse at lightning speed. Any unfounded rumors peddled by anonymous sources simply do not have any clue what’s happening or are actively working against the President’s agenda and the will of the American people.”