Elon Musk’s Tenure as Head of DOGE Comes to an End.

​The tenure of special government employee Elon Musk as head of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) ended on May 30, 2025.  This comes as a relief to many, including Musk himself.  Musk was brought to Washington, D.C. by President Trump to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal bureaucracy. No one will dispute that this is a good and needed task, but DOGE’s work to date has created chaos without any meaningful cuts to the federal budget. 

​Musk was in a hurry to make significant cuts to federal spending, something that many politicians and Washinton insiders have been trying to do for years. But rather than taking a methodical approach using seasoned professionals, he brought in mostly young men from the tech world who had little knowledge of how government works or the intricacies of the federal bureaucracy. Musk’s team quickly got to work destabilizing the federal workforce, gutting entire agencies, rifling through sensitive government databases, cancelling foreign aid and research grants, and laying off thousands of workers without any knowledge of who they were or the work they did. All of this was done with the full blessing of President Trump who allowed Musk’s team to run roughshod through agency after agency with little regard for who was hurt or the impact that would result. 

DOGE’s Goal: At the outset the stated goal of DOGE was to cut $2 trillion from the $7 trillion federal budget. This was soon scaled back to $1 trillion and now stands at $150 billion.

DOGE’s Accomplishments: According to DOGE’s website, it has generated $175 billion in savings for the federal government. Most credible sources dispute this number, and it is impossible to verify the accuracy of DOGE’s claims.
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The Reality: It is very possible that DOGE’s efforts will end up costing the federal government billions of dollars more than the savings it has found. There are estimates that DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce could result in new costs of over $100 billion to rehire and retrain for key positions that had been previously eliminated. But the real damage will result from the slashing of the IRS’s budget and the lack of investigations and enforcement that will follow. This will embolden tax evasion and reduce collections by billions of dollars per year. There are some estimates that hundreds of billions in lost revenue will result from defunding the IRS. 

​Legacy of DOGE: Even without Elon Musk the work of DOGE will continue with team members embedded in various departments throughout the federal bureaucracy. Even though DOGE has been in existence for only four months, the damage it has caused will have lasting impacts. Here are some of the most consequential:

• ​USAID Funding Cuts: The funding cuts to the US Aid Agency and elimination of many of its foreign aid programs have already resulted in increased deaths and spread of disease from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. According to Boston University School of Public Health, cuts to nutritional and disease prevention and treatment programs have already resulted in the preventable deaths of 300,000 people, mostly children. This may well be DOGE’s most enduring legacy.
• Defunding IRS: As DOGE can attest to, it will virtually be impossible for the federal government to cut its way out of the huge budget deficits that it faces. The major source of revenues to the federal treasury are income taxes, and the IRS is tasked with enforcement of the income tax code. The cuts to the IRS budget undermine collections, investigations and enforcement. Hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes will now go uncollected each year.
• Access to Private Data: Members of DOGE have had unfettered access to sensitive government databases across multiple agencies including the Treasury Department, Social Security Administration and the IRS. This means that DOGE has access to citizens’ Social Security records, tax returns, medical records from Medicare and Medicaid, student loan documents, military records, and records from many other federal programs. I don’t trust DOGE or Elon Musk to safeguard this data or to prevent it from being used to benefit themselves or the Trump Administration. This is potentially the greatest breech of Americans’ personal data in history. Elon Musk will certainly benefit from his time in DOGE by virtue of his access to nonpublic information on government contracts and on the agencies that regulate his companies. 

The establishment of DOGE and appointing Elon Musk to head it will be another legacy of the Trump Administration. If Trump’s intention with unleashing DOGE on the federal government was to create chaos and to make the federal government a less appealing place to work, he certainly succeeded. If he truly wanted to rid the federal bureaucracy of waste, fraud and abuse he went about it the wrong way.

In the first week of his second term Trump fired the inspectors general (IGs) of 17 federal agencies. Inspectors general act as independent watchdogs within government agencies and primarily focus on detecting and preventing waste, fraud and abuse. Unlike members of DOGE, the IGs are seasoned professionals who have the experience and knowledge of the workings of government. They are the ones who could have made recommendations to the president and to Congress about the appropriate cuts to make. With both chambers of Congress in the hands of the Republicans, the president could have allowed Congress to fulfill its Constitutional duty of conducting oversight of the executive branch to seek out waste, fraud and abuse. But that was not to be.
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In the end, Donald Trump will never cede power to Congress or to independent watchdog groups who might interfere with his agenda. He created DOGE and its legacy will be entwined with his, for better or for worse.

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Thanks,
Armchair American