The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency wants to charge at least one federal agency millions of dollars for its work.
The Office of Personnel Management was asked to pay for 20 full-time positions in Musk’s department for work between January 20 and July 4, 2026, according to the draft agreement obtained by CNN sent from the executive office of the president to OPM leadership for review. The total bill could end up topping $4 million.
DOGE’s work would include modernizing the agency’s systems, according to the draft agreement. It says OPM “has an immediate and critical need for rapid and thorough IT modernization of the sort that the agency is not equipped to handle on its own.” The agency, under the draft agreement’s terms, is required to provide DOGE access to its data and systems, as well as “operational and technical support.”
DOGE and Musk say they are making government more efficient and saving taxpayers money, while critics blast their efforts to fire federal workers and access sensitive government data. It’s not clear if DOGE has sought to charge other federal agencies for its services.
The group has disclosed little about its budget and operations. It was designed in a way that shields it from federal public records laws: DOGE is housed within the Office of Management and Budget, part of the executive office of the president. The White House has sought to make clear that Musk is not the administrator of DOGE but is an adviser to Trump, which comes with the protections of executive privilege.
The draft agreement requires OPM to pay in advance each month for that work, though it also stipulates that Musk’s department might do less work and reimburse the agency. It’s unclear if any payments have been made as yet.
President Donald Trump brought Musk into his administration as a “special government employee”—a” title that doesn’t fully capture the role the tech billionaire has played. Musk participated in Trump’s first Cabinet meeting. And the department he leads has sought to slash federal spending—frequently igniting controversy and triggering court battles.
What hasn’t been clear is how much the effort is costing taxpayers and where funding for DOGE—previously the United States Digital Services before Trump renamed it through an executive order on his first day in office—was coming from.
Musk has described himself as a volunteer, and those working for DOE generally have nebulous titles.
“Some people are federal employees,” Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity last month. “But it’s fair to say that the software engineers at DOGE could be earning millions of dollars a year and instead are earning a small fraction of that as federal employees.”
The draft agreement specifies that the full-time equivalents would be funded at the highest of 15 possible grades on the federal general pay schedule—usually reserved for senior managers – and at the fifth highest of 10 possible steps within that grade. According to OPM’s January 2025 update, that base rate is $141,817 annually, but it increases based on location and is $189,950 in the Washington, DC, area.
Over 17 and a half months, funding 20 full-time equivalent positions at the base annual rate would add up to about $4.1 million.
“Some people think they are working for free. No, we are paying,” an OPM employee told CNN. “It’s like having a contract with an entity to perform services, except this is forced on us, so we are forced to agree to retain their services.”
