By Marc Stoufer III
In recent weeks, billionaire Elon Musk has dominated headlines with his newest venture, DOGE. In this case, that doesn’t refer to the cryptocurrency, but to the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk’s initiative to reduce wasteful spending in the federal government.
It’s only recently that Musk has been a part of politics at all. In 2015, he said that he got involved “as little as possible.”
By 2022, though, he had started echoing Donald Trump’s campaign points on X, formerly known as Twitter, and officially endorsed Trump for re-election in 2024 following his assassination attempt while speaking at a rally.
Musk spent the lead-up to the Presidential election encouraging support for Trump. During a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he cited the “sensible, common sense things” Trump was promising voters – such as increased border control, greater protections on freedom of speech and a limit on federal spending.
“The amount of waste that happens with the federal government is really staggering,” Musk said to a crowd at the October rally. “(Politicians) seem to forget that the money being spent is your money.”
This about-face politically was, according to Musk, “because I think the future of America and the future of civilization is at stake.’
In conjunction with this increased support, while on the campaign trail, Trump began floating the possibility of a government position for Musk in a newly created advisory group designed to target that federal waste.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to transform the United States Digital Service into the Department of Government Efficiency – a body with the same job, but a new name and new leadership under Musk, with the task to “implement the President’s DOGE Agenda” before its lifespan expires in July 2026.
Almost immediately, the department began what Congressional Representative Mike Lawler called a “comprehensive forensic audit of every department and agency in the federal government.”
To date, DOGE claims to have saved the government $65 billion. That amount is in question, however, since much of it isn’t attributed on the agency’s “wall of receipts,” and likely includes an entry for $8 billion that was later corrected to only $8 million.
Regardless of the final number, DOGE has taken to its forensic audit in a growing number of ways.
In the first five weeks of the second Trump administration, the department has removed government web pages that refer to gender identity or the LGBTQ+ community, ended nearly 29 federal DEI programs- and threatened to pull funding from schools that didn’t end their DEI programs, reduced the federal workforce by offering employees a financial buyout to leave, taken control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, cut $900 million from the Department of Education’s budget, fired multiple officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, cut more than $4 billion from the National Institutes of Health’s research budget and fired multiple employees and made a move to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and any humanitarian work they were doing.
Additionally, the department has been in contact with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Defense, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.
This has all been done with unprecedented access to and free reign in nearly every corner of the federal government, from agency newspaper subscriptions to the Treasury Department’s payment system – including the sensitive financial data of millions of Americans.
Response to these initiatives has been mixed. In a Washington Post poll, 49% of respondents said they disapproved of Musk and his efforts, while only 34% (70% of Republicans polled) said they approved.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Fox News that he felt the changes were both necessary and popular with voters.
“I think American voters like the intensity and focus that they’ve seen from 30-some days of this administration, going about doing the things they told voters they were going to do,” said Jordan. “Instead of Democrats attacking the guy who’s exposing the stupid spending, how about helping us get rid of the stupid spending?”
Critics of the department, though, believe these changes are going to negatively impact the American people.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), for example, laid off over 6,000 employees as a result of DOGE initiatives – less than a month from tax season.
“They may be able to weather the storm, but I know it’s going to be hard,” said Christopher Napier, a recently laid-off IRS employee, in an interview with ABC News. “You talk about efficiency. Why cut teams making things more efficient?”
This pushback hasn’t stopped Musk and his agency from pushing forward.
Recently, Trump signed an executive order that would further federal layoffs past the 100,000 employees already affected, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched a state-focused version of DOGE, and Trump has discussed a possible DOGE stimulus check using the money saved in these cuts.
The road ahead may be difficult for the Department of Government Efficiency, though.
District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland recently blocked the department from accessing data from the Department of Education, writing that it would violate the privacy rights of citizens.
Additionally, Congress has the final say on how the government spends its money and will need to approve the changes DOGE has made. With a mostly split House (218/215, favoring Republicans) and Senate (53/45, also favoring Republicans), only time may tell which of these budget cuts will stay and which will be reversed.
