Who is Amy Gleason, and is she really leading the Department of Government Efficiency?

As debate continues to swirl around the legality of actions being taken by the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the White House has claimed that an official named Amy Gleason is actually its administrator.

Since Donald Trump took office in January, DOGE, under Elon Musk, has led an unprecedented effort to purge federal agencies and fire thousands of workers, including overseas international development agency USAID.

On 18 February, White House said in a declaration that Elon Musk has “no authority to make government decisions” despite appearing to have a US government position as DOGE leader.

The three-page declaration states that Musk has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself”, and appears to go against President Trump and Musk’s public discussions of the department. 

The documents, provided to a federal court by Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, confirmed that Musk is not the official administrator of DOGE. However, Fisher did not state who the administrator is.  Now, the White House has finally named the administrator as Amy Gleason.

The release of Amy Gleason’s name follows a tense exchange between press secretary Karoline Leavitt and a journalist, who asked Leavitt to confirm who the administrator of DOGE was, if not Elon Musk, amid claims the Trump administration’s own lawyer didn’t know the answer to that question.

“Elon Musk is overseeing DOGE… Elon Musk is a special government employee… There are career officials at DOGE, there are political appointees at DOGE. I am not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium,” Leavitt replied.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is again asked who the DOGE Administrator is since it's been stated in court that it's not Elon Musk:

"I'm not going to reveal name of that individual from this podium…but we've been incredibly transparent about the way DOGE is… pic.twitter.com/mff8tzN8LD

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) February 25, 2025

The exchange took place following a hearing in Washington about DOGE’s access to Department of Treasury records on Monday (24 February). During the hearing, government lawyers couldn’t answer whether an administrator for the agency even exists, the Independent reports.

“Is there an administrator of DOGE at the present time?” asked Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Department of Justice trial counsel Bradley Humphreys replied.

Now, the White House has finally revealed the agency’s acting administrator: Amy Gleason, but who is she, and does she really have the authority to rein in Elon Musk?

What is Amy Gleason’s background?

Amy Gleason’s LinkedIn profile lists her as a senior adviser for the US Digital Service, which Donald Trump renamed the US DOGE Service by executive order.

Before she was appointed as a senior advisor, she worked at the agency as a “digital services expert” from October 2018 until December 2021.

Gleason was involved in developing an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In an interview about her work during that time, she described long hours and the frequent hurdles she encountered.

“We would leave at four in the morning from the White House,” Gleason said. “You could take a shower, maybe you got a 30-minute nap and you had to be right back there. So everybody was kind of running on fumes.”

She told the interviewer how she worked hard to cut red tape and improve efficiency during that period, creating a data system called HHS Protect to act as a comprehensive hospital data tracker.

Gleason gave a TED talk in 2020, where she discussed being a primary caregiver to her daughter Morgan Gleason, who had been diagnosed with Juvenile Dermatomyositis, and spoke about the need to improve the way patient records are kept and accessed in the US.

Beyond that, little is known about her role and how much authority she has. It’s also believed she was blindsided by the administration’s decision to release her name.

The New York Times reported that Gleason “was scheduled to be on vacation in Mexico on Tuesday and told associates that she was not aware ahead of time that the White House planned to make public her role.” She did not return their request for comment.