Elon Musk’s cost-cutting army has set its sighst on an iconic US landmark amid fears that it will wreck serious damage. Representatives from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) visited the National Gallery of Art on Thursday where they met with leadership at the premier cultural institution in Washington DC.

Musk’s DOGE is looking beyond gutting federal agencies to targeting pillars of the US’s cultural life. National Gallery Director Kaywin Feldman and Secretary and General Counsel Luis Baquedano discussed the museum’s legal status with Doge representatives, according to an email seen by Bloomberg CityLab. The intentions of the billionaire's team are currently unknown, but fears are rising that DOGE could take a chainsaw to one of the best museums for art in the world, and the Financial Times described the Trump administration's efforts as "an assault on the US’s cultural institutions".

The National Gallery holds some 141,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, and decorative arts tracing the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.

It is a public-private partnership that receives funding from Congress for its day-to-day operations but the bulk of its support is from acquisitions and growth from a private trust.

The museum is overseen by a board of trustees and is distanced from the White House. However, in the past the board has included government officials and among them is current trustee Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

In an email, Kaywin Feldman the National Gallery's fifth director, said: “As a public-private partnership, we have worked with every administration since our inception and will continue to work with the Administration and Congress while we remain focused on fulfilling our mission to preserve and share artistic excellence with all Americans."

Led by the world's richest man Doge is a new advisory body created by US President Donald Trump where Musk has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending.

This move comes after Trump became chair of the Kennedy Center after pushing out billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein.

After taking control of Washington DC’s largest and most prominent performing arts venue the US president pledged that there would be “no more drag shows or other anti-American propaganda” at the site prompting backlash from artists and performers.

The president last month issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” which he described as a “revisionist movement” across the country.