As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to review the operations of the federal government, the unit is now turning its attention to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to a report by Financial Advisor Magazine, the development was disclosed recently on X, the social media site of White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk. The message said DOGE is actively seeking “insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud and abuse relating to the Securities and Exchange Commission.” The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.
Thousands of workers have been fired or laid off from federal government agencies as President Donald Trump and DOGE have launched their efforts to reduce the federal workforce. DOGE’s scrutiny of the SEC involves an agency with over 5,000 employeees. Industry experts discussed the issue in interviews with Financial Advisor.
“SEC staff have been laying low over the last 30 days and are unusually quiet,” said attorney Brian Hamburger of Hamburger Law Firm and its affiliated consultancy, MarketCounsel Consulting. “I think everyone is waiting to see the impact of this administration exerting its will over what has previously been viewed as an independent agency.”
The administration’s previous layoffs have included widespread cutbacks of probationary employees, those generally on the job for less than a year and who have yet to gain civil service protection. About 6%, or 300 staff, out of the SEC’s more than 5,000 workers were employed by the commission less than a year as of 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data on DOGE’s website. But Hamburger said even those with longer tenures at the SEC may be feeling apprehensive.
“I’m sure the [SEC] lifers are also concerned about hanging on to their job and are not looking to take a political stance,” he said.
Others also expressed the view that the SEC may not be immune from the administration’s large-scale workforce reductions.
“On the one hand I’m hopeful that the existing SEC commissioners will resist any attempt to summarily purge SEC staff without some adequate basis, but I would have thought DOGE and this administration would have exercised more restraint, say for instance at the FAA, where they let go of staff and now we’re seeing more airplane crashes,” said Benjamin Edwards, a former securities litigator with Skadden, Arps who represented clients in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
The SEC is currently being led by acting Chair Mark Uyeda, who is expected to run the agency until Trump’s pick for chair, Paul Atkins, is confirmed.
According to a recent Reuters report, the SEC plans to remove the top leaders at regional offices across the country as part of its cost-cutting recommendations to the Trump administration, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The SEC told directors across its 10 regional offices that their roles will be eliminated as part of the plan the agency submits next month, the sources told Reuters.
Edwards said cutting staff at the SEC could impact the commission’s ability to investigate fraud in the industry such as the Madoff case.
“If you go in and make the SEC an unsafe place to work, it just becomes harder and harder for the SEC to retain the talent they need to do their job. It is not good for the public and our ability to stop these big scams early,” he said.
Parham Nasseri, president of InvestorCOM, which provides regulatory compliance software and communications solutions for more than 100 wealth and asset managers, said reductions could affect the pace of rulemaking at the SEC but not the commission’s basic principles.
“We anticipate that core enforcement functions and the fundamental commitment to investor protection will remain a priority,” Nasseri added.
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