The National Design Studio (NDS), a White House office staffed largely by veterans of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), has quietly rebuilt some of the most sensitive federal websites—including those for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing, and children's savings accounts—in ways critics say violate federal privacy laws.
NDS built and operates four public sites with tracking software
According to a Guardian investigation, the NDS built and operates ndstudio.gov, trumprx.gov, realfood.gov, and trumpaccounts.gov. All four sites ran commercial visitor-tracking software called PostHog, configured to evade ad blockers and other privacy tools. None of the sites carry the public filings required under the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002.
John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), said: “It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust. They are trying to establish their own sort of fly-by-night version of what federal agencies normally do with added tracking technologies and less oversight.”
PostHog tracking evades privacy tools
PostHog’s session-recording feature, which can replay every click, scroll, and keystroke, was installed on all four sites and enabled on two. On the remaining two, recording was held inactive by a single dashboard setting. The software was configured to route analytics requests through the federal website’s own address, bypassing ad blockers.
Serge Egelman, research director of the Usable Security and Privacy Group at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), explained: “The issue there is that over the last several years, due to abuses relating to this type of data collection, there’s basically an arms race with tools being released to allow consumers to try and exert some control over what data gets collected.” He noted a similar case where the Meta Pixel on the California DMV website collected sensitive information protected by federal law.
NDS removed tracking after Guardian inquiry
The NDS removed the tracking software after the Guardian contacted the White House on June 4. On June 17, White House spokesperson Liz Huston responded: “All National Design Studio personnel comply with all legal requirements in their important work to improve how citizens interact with their government.”
Studio bypasses federal oversight and agencies
The NDS was created by executive order on August 21, 2025, as a “temporary organization” within the executive office of the president, placing it outside Senate confirmation, financial disclosure, and inspector general oversight. Its spending does not appear in USAspending, the federal contracting database.
The studio built White House-controlled versions of services assigned to other agencies, including a passport-application portal bypassing the State Department, and a copy of vote.gov, the federal voter-registration site that by law belongs to the independent, bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
Vote.gov copy raises election interference fears
The NDS’s version of vote.gov, live on White House systems since September 17, 2025, requires identity verification through Login.gov and citizenship checks against a Department of Homeland Security database. On a call with state election directors, NDS engineer Akash Bobba reportedly said: “I don’t know what they retain and what they are logging” regarding voter data retention.
Brianna Schletz, the EAC’s executive director, told state directors the conversations were “informal” and that commissioners would later vote on participation. No record of such a vote has appeared. The EAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Studio led by Joe Gebbia, staffed by Doge veterans
Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder and chief design officer of the United States, leads the NDS. He stepped back from Airbnb in 2022 and joined the Tesla board that September. He spent about six months at Doge in early 2025. Other Doge veterans include Greg Hogan, put in charge of Login.gov, and Akash Bobba, one of Musk’s original six Doge engineers.
The NDS’s funding and contracts remain opaque. A search of USAspending returns no record of the studio. The hiring authority keeps its staff off the financial-disclosure system, and the executive office of the president has no inspector general.
