In early 2025, Americans first learned about the takeover of the federal government by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE had been operating under a veil of secrecy, with little or no oversight, but WIRED’s standout reporting had a profound impact on our understanding of DOGE and what it was doing.

The WIRED newsroom broke story after story about the man Donald Trump entrusted with dismantling the government, Elon Musk. Reporters uncovered the scope, impact, and ambitions of DOGE as it assumed control of dozens of agencies and abruptly fired tens of thousands of federal workers.

The Trump administration and Musk did not want concerned citizens or policymakers to grasp the full extent of their goals—or the mechanisms they put in place to achieve them. WIRED’s reporting became a vital resource for readers, voters, and officials alike. As DOGE operatives fanned across the government, WIRED’s newsroom provided an essential public service, delivering accurate, timely information when many, including government employees, lacked clarity about what was unfolding.

WIRED’s stories were not only groundbreaking; they were singular. While much of the country was reeling from the speed of Musk’s takeover, WIRED relentlessly chronicled DOGE’s access to multiple agencies, its recruitment efforts, and its pivot toward artificial intelligence. Among many other revelations, WIRED was the first to report that young, inexperienced individuals—some just out of high school or college—had been placed in senior roles. For example, a young engineer and former Musk employee was granted unprecedented access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, not just to read files but to alter them.

In its first major feature article, “Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup,’” WIRED detailed the first six weeks of DOGE’s rise, from the moment its operatives infiltrated the Office of Personnel Management to its takeover of the Social Security Administration. WIRED spoke with more than 150 federal workers, policy experts, and Musk insiders to understand how it happened. The reports exposed the breadth of Musk’s intentions and revealed how he and DOGE sought and gained access to vast swaths of government data, all to enforce Trump’s slash-and-burn agenda.

WIRED broke news repeatedly. We learned who was running DOGE under a veil of secrecy. We discovered that DOGE operatives had read-and-write access to critical Treasury payment systems. We watched WIRED expose the unvetted engineers from Musk’s SpaceX who had infiltrated the Federal Aviation Administration. We realized the breadth of confidential information DOGE had accessed, including federal workers’ tax records, biometric data, and private medical histories. And we saw WIRED debunk Musk’s viral lie that Social Security had been paying benefits to millions of people who were 150 years old.

It was from WIRED that we learned that USAID—which Musk publicly had called “a criminal organization”—had been stripped of funding; that the credit cards of federal employees had been reset with a spending limit of $1; and that young men aged 19 to 24, with little or no government experience, had been entrusted with critical roles.

WIRED’s coverage was picked up by every major American news outlet, and by many international ones as well. Elected officials read and circulated WIRED’s reporting and often referenced its work, both on the floor of Congress and in formal letters to the administration. WIRED stories were cited in multiple DOGE-related lawsuits.

This impressive, continuing coverage exemplifies investigative reporting at its best. WIRED’s deep investigative focus and commitment to the public exposed the Trump administration’s campaign to advance corporate interests by sabotaging the federal government.