Musk is gone, will DOGE survive?

When Trump said he would appoint Elon Musk to head a so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) focused on government spending, most of Washington yawned. They had seen such toothless efforts before.

After all, there is only so much you can do as the majority of the government’s spending is mandatory. Mandatory spending refers to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are funded by existing laws and typically continue each year unless those laws are changed. Discretionary spending, on the other hand, is the portion of the budget that Congress must approve each year through annual appropriations bills. This piece is what Musk and DOGE could focus on. In FY 2024, mandatory spending represented 61% of the budget, while discretionary spending was 26%. The remaining portion is typically allocated to net interest payments on the enormous federal debt. Total annual federal budget is $7 trillion.

Now, Musk makes his way for the exit. Musk is stepping back from DOGE, which Trump appointed the tech billionaire to run for the first 130 days of his new administration. Musk has been a polarizing figure in Washington, and that has extended to his announcement earlier this week that he is returning to the private sector. After all, it seems reasonable to try to reduce billions of dollars of wasteful spending and to finally try to deal with government corruption.

Musk dealt a blow to the House GOP by criticizing their “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill that will keep growing the budget deficit and increase U.S. debt by about $4 trillion. Bottom line is that nobody really wants to cut spending and there is no serious force in Washington to have an interest in a balanced budget and start paying down the staggering $36 trillion national debt.  

Musk’s time at the White House has come to an end. But he had already had his power reined in, becoming far less powerful in Washington as his grand ambitions hit a wall. For about the first six weeks of Trump’s administration, Musk really did seem to have something approximate to CEO powers. Then, in early March, things suddenly changed. Much of Trump’s cabinet revolted against Musk’s dictates, and Trump reined him in, decreeing that his agenda would have to be approved by cabinet secretaries, rather than imposed on them. After all, cabinet members are politicians, and they don’t want any interruptions to their organization by some tech cowboy and they have no incentive to reduce expenses.

After all, almost no one was prepared for what Musk did, for how aggressively he would move and for the specifics of what exactly he would try to pull off. In its first phase, DOGE represented nothing less than a new model of how to run the U.S. federal government. In it, Musk, a White House adviser empowered by the president, had the power to order sweeping changes and have them carried out rapidly. He acted as the de facto CEO of the federal workforce, as if he got to decide who gets fired, who gets promoted, and how money is spent.

One lever was firing power. Musk had the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government hiring and HR office, stacked with his allies, and repurposed the sleepy office as an instrument of control over the federal workforce. OPM then sent out directives to federal employees, laying off some, offering buyouts to others, while ordering yet others placed on paid administrative leave. Another lever was spending power. DOGE ran rampant through government agencies, rapidly canceling contracts it claimed were wasteful, or even, in the case of USAID, dismantling an entire agency.

Musk and DOGE’s initial advance came as much of Trump’s cabinet was still awaiting senate confirmation. Then, when cabinet secretaries were first sworn in, most seemed to be looking on haplessly as he bulldozed over their objections. Eventually, though, some of them decided they would actually like to run the agencies they were confirmed to lead, not have Musk do it for them. The president soon announced that from now on, DOGE would have to work with the cabinet secretaries to make cuts. Since then, DOGE has faded as a story, pushing far less dramatic changes. Slowed down by cabinet secretaries, DOGE began focusing on weaker targets like the U.S. Institute of Peace or the Social Security Administration, and even some of DOGE’s planned cuts there were called off.

Musk’s initial wrecking ball will still have real long-term consequences. The agencies he and his allies have dismantled, USAID, known for rampant corruption, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be very difficult to put back together, so the U.S. will be doing far less foreign aid and consumer protection for the foreseeable future.  

Part of DOGE’s mission was, in theory, not just to cut government but also to make it more efficient. Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of Airbnb, has been tasked with modernizing the absurdly antiquated paper-based retirement process for federal employees. They should also focus on a technology upgrade of the federal government.

Musk did a fine job and served with honor, but the fact is that Trump wants to keep spending, a large majority of politicians don’t want any change to the way things are done and that nobody in Washington really cares if there are inefficiencies and a huge deficit. They care about being reelected and living a good and easy life, but that will certainly not make things more efficient or bring costs down. As a result, DOGE will survive, but in a weaker form and with limited ability to make significant impact. They will save a few billions here and there, but that is it.