Former members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency are building an AI-powered website called America.gov, designed to let the public file taxes, renew passports, and access other federal services through a chatbot interface. The site is slated to launch by the end of September, and some Trump administration officials see it as a political asset ahead of the midterm elections, according to a report in The Washington Sun.
Who is building the site
The project is housed within the White House's National Design Studio, led by Airbnb co-founder and former DOGE official Joe Gebbia. The team includes 20-year-old Edward Coristine, an early DOGE staffer who gained notoriety for his "Big Balls" nickname. Coristine had previously been fired from a cybersecurity internship for allegedly leaking inside information to a competitor. Another former DOGE official, Sam Corcos, is involved with the Login.gov identity-verification system being considered for America.gov access.
The General Services Administration would oversee the site. Neither the White House, Treasury Department, State Department, nor GSA responded to inquiries about the project.
Replacing a program the administration canceled
The tax-filing feature would fill the gap left by Direct File, a free online tax tool the Biden administration launched in March 2024. The Trump administration canceled Direct File in November 2025. Merici Vinton, former deputy of Direct File and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told the Sun, "There's a real need for simple, integrated services. We actually built one, Direct File, and people loved and trusted it, but it took careful work. Then DOGE killed it."
Vinton also warned that rushing an AI-driven tax tool could backfire. "In a moment where the public is already skeptical about AI in government, this could undo trust instead of building it."
DOGE's track record on savings and workforce cuts
Musk initially said DOGE would cut up to $2 trillion in government spending. Its public "Wall of Receipts" listed $215 billion in estimated savings before the group was shut down in July. A Government Accountability Office report found that 96% of DOGE's reported savings could not be verified. The GAO also said DOGE's claim of saving $110 billion on contracts, grants, and leases was inflated because some lease terminations were already in progress.
A separate GAO report released Tuesday said a DOGE-inspired push to shrink the federal workforce paid employees roughly $9.5 billion not to work, with $6.7 billion of that going to people who eventually retired or resigned.
Why this matters for government professionals
The America.gov project signals a shift in how federal digital services get built - from career civil servants with domain expertise to political appointees and short-term teams assembled outside traditional agency structures. If the site launches with the speed reported, federal IT and program managers will face immediate questions about data security, integration with legacy systems, and whether the chatbot can handle the edge cases that human-staffed services resolve daily. The GAO's findings on DOGE's savings claims also provide a precedent for how aggressively Congress and watchdog agencies may scrutinize the costs and performance claims tied to this initiative.
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