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GAO report found federal agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, withheld DOGE personnel and ethics-compliance records

The Government Accountability Office reported on August 5, 2026 that it still could not identify everyone who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) or verify their ethics-training and financial-disclosure compliance, more than a year after Elon Musk left government. GAO identified only 206 DOGE-linked personnel in the Executive Office of the President and obtained ethics and disclosure records for just 64 of them, after the Executive Office of the President and ten other federal agencies did not respond to its requests for records or interviews. The report, GAO-26-108403, also found the U.S. DOGE Service could legally continue operating despite DOGE's formal shutdown.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On August 5, 2026, the Government Accountability Office published GAO-26-108403, "DOGE: Information on Personnel and Ethics Activities," reporting that federal agencies still would not provide the records GAO needs to identify everyone who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency or to verify their compliance with ethics-training and financial-disclosure requirements. GAO identified 206 people who held DOGE-linked positions in the Executive Office of the President between January 2025 and January 2026, including 27 special government employees such as Elon Musk, whose outside business interests raised conflict-of-interest concerns. Investigators obtained ethics-training and financial-disclosure records for only 64 of those 206 individuals; of that group, 49 had completed ethics training, 18 had completed records-management training, and 38 had filed financial disclosures.

The gaps traced directly to non-cooperation. The Executive Office of the President did not respond to GAO's requests for training records, financial disclosures, or interviews with DOGE personnel, and ten other executive branch agencies did not provide requested information in a timely manner or at all. GAO also reported it could not reach Elon Musk directly and received no response after asking his advisers to arrange an interview or written answers. Separately, the report found that although DOGE's formal mandate ended July 4, 2026, the U.S. DOGE Service it operated within remains statutorily authorized to continue.

This is a distinct instance of a pattern documented earlier in the archive: in May 2026, General Services Administration officials blocked oversight investigators from inspecting DOGE-converted office space and Starlink equipment. That entry involved a different oversight body seeking different records on an earlier date. Here, a separate watchdog -- GAO, a legislative-branch body, rather than the inspectors general and Senate committee involved in May -- sought a different category of records more than two months later, and was met with the same institutional refusal to produce them.

Why we recorded this

Congress created the Government Accountability Office so lawmakers and the public can independently verify how the executive branch spends money and staffs itself, rather than relying on agencies to report on themselves. GAO's new report found it could not identify who worked for DOGE or confirm they completed required ethics training and financial disclosures because the Executive Office of the President and ten other agencies did not respond to its requests for records and interviews. When agencies simply decline to answer a congressional watchdog's inquiry, the accountability mechanism that lets the public learn whether officials with access to sensitive federal systems complied with conflict-of-interest rules stops functioning.

Sources

  1. DOGE: Information on Personnel and Ethics Activities — U.S. Government Accountability Office primary accessed August 6, 2026
  2. Government watchdog still can't identify who all worked for DOGE — The Washington Post primary accessed August 6, 2026
  3. Watchdog puts new numbers on the size of DOGE, but many details remain unknown as agencies refuse to turn over information — Government Executive secondary accessed August 6, 2026
  4. Watchdog finds scant records of DOGE ethics training, financial disclosures — FedScoop secondary accessed August 6, 2026

See also