Elon Musk’s Waste.gov Is Just a WordPress Theme Placeholder Page

A government website created by the Trump administration to “track government waste” has been left unupdated with a default WordPress sample page that includes language about an imaginary architecture firm. 

“Waste.gov: Tracking government waste,” the tagline for the website, archived here, says. The rest of the webpage, however, is about an imaginary architecture firm called Études, pulled from a sample webpage for a default WordPress theme called Twenty Twenty-Four. 

This remains the case a day after Elon Musk, in the Oval Office, told reporters that all of DOGE’s supposed waste-cutting actions are transparent and are available on government websites. Musk is currently in charge of finding and eliminating “waste.”

“We actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions—we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X, and to the DOGE website. So all of our actions, which are maximally transparent,” Musk said. “In fact, I don’t think there’s been — I don’t know the case that where [sic] an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.” 

The DOGE website contains the line “An official website of the United States government,” a single image of a dollar sign, the words “Department of Government Efficiency. The people voted for major reform,” and nothing else. The website for the US Digital Service, which has been renamed the US DOGE Service, has not been meaningfully updated since Trump was inaugurated. 

Waste.gov, meanwhile, says “Études is a pioneering firm that seamlessly merges creativity and functionality to redefine architectural excellence,” and various default images and text from the “Twenty Twenty-Four” WordPress theme, which is also billed as “a flexible default theme.” The theme is “suitable for everyone, from casual bloggers to creative photographers or small businesses,” the theme’s page advertises. Seemingly, the inclusive nature of this theme extends its utility to those seeking to gut the federal government. Specifically, Waste.gov is an exact mirror of the “Entrepreneur demo” for that theme.

Notably, Waste.gov does not comply with various executive orders issued by Donald Trump because it contains the word “diverse” in the line “Our comprehensive suite of professional services caters to a diverse clientele, ranging from homeowners to commercial developers.” The imaginary architecture firm also offers “a commitment to innovation and sustainability.” Research on climate change and sustainability has been purged by this administration. 

The White House registered both waste.gov and DEI.gov—which redirects to waste.gov—last week, Reuters reported.