Elon Musk’s DOGE is now running America’s national parks

A major shakeup in leadership is underway at the National Park Service, which is now run by DOGE

A major shakeup in leadership is underway at the National Park Service.

Late last week, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency essentially took over the Interior Department, which includes the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and more. The Interior Department is supposed to oversee 400 national parks and historic sites, uphold treaty rights with over 500 recognized Native American tribes, manage more than 500 million acres of land and conserve the country’s fish and wildlife.

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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed away significant control of the Interior Department in a secretarial order Thursday night. The order gives a DOGE operative, Tyler Hassen, the power to oversee the Interior Department for “consolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functions.”

It directs Hassen, DOGE’s assistant secretary of policy, management and budget, to make funding decisions, fire employees, create policy, oversee programs and transfer funds. Hassen is a former oil executive who worked for Basin Energy, an oil field equipment company, before joining the Trump administration.

The order grants broad powers to Hassen. It doesn’t require Hassen to report to Burgum, or give Burgum veto power of any of Hassen’s decisions — including the potential firing of thousands of public lands managers or park rangers. According to reporting in the Washington Post, Hassen is reviewing any grants and contracts worth more than $50,000.

A National Park Service ranger conducts a walking tour in Shark Valley, part of the Everglades National Park, on April 17, 2025. Everglades National Park and all other national parks are now being run by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

It’s unclear whether an agency leader can legally delegate authority to DOGE, a federal initiative that is not actually a government department established by Congress.

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“This order shows what it looks like when leaders abdicate their jobs and let unqualified outsiders fire thousands of civil servants who are working on behalf of all Americans and their public lands,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of Center for Western Priorities, a conservation advocacy organization, in a statement.

Efforts to consolidate the National Park Service have already been underway for months. Recent chaos at the National Park Service has led to crucial positions being lost and going unfilled, including top leaders at monuments and parks across the country. As many as 100 superintendent positions had gone vacant, according to Kati Schmidt, a spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting national parks. The parks group has been a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s approach to the National Park Service, speaking out about policies it says will hurt the parks and those who visit them.

Park superintendents manage all operations, resources and employees in their park. They’re also responsible for protecting the natural and cultural resources of their park or national monument.

The superintendent vacancies are due to a combination of factors: positions that were vacant before the Trump administration that now can’t be filled due to a hiring freeze, people who resigned, people who took a voluntary buyout offer, people who retired early and people who were fired. Those who took early retirement offers had their last day on April 18.

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Former Yosemite National Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon poses for a portrait in Yosemite National Park on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Muldoon’s position is one of at least 100 superintendent vacancies in the National Park Service.

Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Yosemite’s superintendent, Cicely Muldoon, sent her resignation notice to staff a week before Donald Trump’s inauguration. An acting superintendent is currently overseeing the park, but no one has been named as a replacement.

A presidential memorandum signed late last week won’t help fill the important job vacancies across more than 400 national parks and historic sites, Schmidt said. President Trump extended his January hiring freeze through July 15.

“No Federal civilian position that is presently vacant may be filled, and no new position may be created, except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or required by applicable law,” it states.

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“This will make things even more difficult for the NPS,” Schmidt said in an email.

Former superintendents agreed with Schmidt’s assessment. “The loss of upwards of 100 park superintendents (not to mention several regional directors) results in a significant loss of institutional knowledge within the National Park Service,” Jeff Mow, the superintendent of Glacier National Park between 2013 and 2022, wrote in an email.

Mow said the loss of superintendents extends outside just the national park itself. “As the primary contact for their local communities, businesses that operate in the park, external partners and stakeholders, superintendents have to develop these relationships over time,” Mow wrote in an email. “From my experience, trust is generally not readily transferable from one individual to another.”

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Vacant leadership positions are just the tip of the iceberg in jobs that are no longer getting done at the National Park Service under Trump. The National Parks Conservation Association is estimating that about 2,500 employees have resigned or taken early buyout offers, though final numbers are still being confirmed. That’s on top of the approximately 1,000 employees who were fired on Valentine’s Day, some of whom have gotten their jobs back — for now.