Following billionaire Elon Musk’s departure from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in late spring 2025, several of the group’s members found a new home within the federal government: the National Design Studio. Led by Joe Gebbia, a cofounder of Airbnb, a former member of DOGE, and currently the chief design officer of the US, the NDS is nested in the Executive Office of the President and has been tasked with redesigning government websites and services.

As with DOGE before it, who exactly is a part of NDS—and what they’re working on—often remains opaque. But a WIRED investigation has found that at least two members of NDS are on loan to the government and are actually employed by a recently formed nonprofit, the America by Design Foundation. This entity appears to be run by James Burnham, a former member of DOGE and the current general counsel of SpaceXAI, the artificial intelligence space company founded by Musk. It is not clear who is funding the foundation or how much money it has.

These findings raise questions about whether NDS, like DOGE, is skirting rules and regulations to bring its chosen staff into government and is functioning as an arm of the tech industry as much as a government initiative.

“The fact that we wouldn’t know who is employing and paying these people is troubling in any context,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.

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