WASHINGTON, DC (April 8, 2025) — Today, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), Ranking Member Valerie Foushee (NC-4) of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Ranking Member Emilia Sykes (OH-13) of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight sent a letter to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), continuing their months-long investigation regarding DOGE personnel and their access to sensitive data and systems at the Agency. In today’s letter, the Members double down on their original concerns after obtaining new information regarding the DOGE team at NASA. The leaders have sent two previous letters to NASA on Elon Musk’s numerous conflicts of interest with the Agency and DOGE personnel access. The vast majority of the Members’ questions and concerns over the risks DOGE poses to NASA have gone unanswered up to this point.
“Our oversight into the danger that DOGE poses for NASA is being impeded by a lack of comprehensive and transparent responses and disclosures on the part of the agency,” the Members wrote in their letter. “This is regrettable, because we have reason to believe DOGE is more harmful than ever. We have obtained new information regarding the DOGE team at NASA and the alarming degree of access they have been granted to agency facilities and data systems without undergoing NASA’s standard vetting process used to identify the potential risk of an employee’s system access. The agency must explain why it has allowed this to happen. DOGE may not currently answer to the law or the best interests of America’s civil space program, but we intend to do everything we can to make sure they answer to Congress.
The Members continued, “The information we have reviewed of NASA’s vulnerability to DOGE-related threats is chilling. The agency has allowed unvetted and untrained individuals to obtain unprecedented access, seemingly in defiance of standard agency protocols and simple common sense. If the agency has vetted these DOGE-associated persons for their questionable professional histories or apparent conflicts-of-interest, we are not aware of it. But we do know that the data and information of our civil space agency, along with personnel information related to the brilliant and dedicated employees of NASA, need to be protected from DOGE’s malign influence. The agency must assert control over this situation and mitigate any damage that has and could continue to occur.”
Committee letters to NASA and NASA's responses are below: