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Elon Musk’s DOGE shuttered USAID. It has searched Medicare payments and gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system. Its initial Labor Department presence prompted a lawsuit.
And it’s just getting started.
The Social Security Administration is an upcoming focus of the Department of Government Efficiency, a source with knowledge of its work told Semafor, and one person involved in DOGE is currently preparing to work with the agency that provides benefits to the elderly and disabled.
Led by Musk and a group of young engineers, DOGE is migrating around the government in search of cuts with an intensity that has demoralized federal workers and become a defining early mark of Donald Trump’s second term. Democrats are citing DOGE as they shift from early divisions over how to handle Trump to more full-throated resistance.
DOGE’s drastic actions have also prompted legal challenges that, combined with growing political heat surrounding its work, have made it nearly impossible for Musk and his group of software engineers to stay behind the curtain. The more attention DOGE gets, the more questions swirl about what its central goal is, exactly.
Those involved and familiar with DOGE, however, say they’re not confused about their mission: They’re empowered to slash government spending and remodel agencies to fall in line with the president’s agenda. What’s more, they appear undisturbed by the drama they’ve caused.
“There’s a lot of disruption, but I would argue that that disruption was needed to be able to go in and scrutinize the record, scrutinize expenditures to fully understand what’s going on,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told Semafor.
Ernst, the head of the Senate’s DOGE Caucus, added that Musk’s team would keep moving through federal programs and spending: “If it’s expenditures that the majority of American people don’t agree with, that the president doesn’t agree with, we’re glad to see it gone.”
DOGE’s early action to shut down the US Agency for International Development, where thousands of workers will be put on leave as of Friday, may end up as the most severe example of its shock-and-awe strategy.
The person with knowledge of its work said DOGE saw starting with USAID as a simple decision, because “it was the most obvious” target for cutting perceived waste.
The blunt treatment of USAID won’t be a model for DOGE’s approach to every agency, according to the person and two others with knowledge of its work. Some areas of the government, like the Border Patrol and veterans’ services, are likely to be treated more carefully.
But DOGE’s interest in trying to root out fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, and perhaps soon in cutting at the Social Security Administration, suggests that government programs once seen as untouchable may be on the table.
Notably, the views among DOGE supporters differ when it comes to where to draw the line: The first of the three people with knowledge of its work told Semafor the “entire federal government” is up for grabs. The second person suggested the line would be drawn at areas affecting national security and initiatives providing direct benefits.
Ernst said “it’s quite possible” every part of the government will face scrutiny at some point.
While Musk has mentioned a goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal government, the group isn’t operating with many specific targets or end goals.
“It’s going to depend on what we find,” the second person said. “There’s going to be reworks across the government, every agency.”
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Moving quickly with a sledgehammer mentality is seen within DOGE as the only way to enact successful change, as all three sources familiar with the group put it.
“There’s a bias toward action in this administration,” said the third person with knowledge of DOGE’s work. “I think there’s an impulse to clean house, and to maybe freeze funding now. And then, if something’s really important, it will distinguish itself, and we’ll bring it back online … You’ve got to just move fast, integrate fast, and then fix it as you go.”
Several sources also pointed out that Musk has operated in a similarly hyper-charged way while dismantling elements of companies after he took charge. At X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk cut 80% of staff before confirming he would try to rehire some back.
“What President Trump and Elon Musk and this entire administration is trying to do is make our bloated bureaucracy in Washington run like a profitable business,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.
DOGE’s basic plan, already in progress at certain agencies, includes asking government managers to help create a plan for workforce reductions, reorganization of divisions — and, if necessary, shutdown of certain areas, one of the three people said.
The shutdown targets are likely to include regional offices seen by DOGE as archaic and wasteful, as well as the sale or other elimination of some properties the government owns.
Right now, one of the people told Semafor, the State and Treasury Department each have an employee helping to work with DOGE.
DOGE also has a growing list of legal problems to contend with, including a federal judge’s Thursday ruling that extended its “fork in the road” early retirement offer for federal workers and another federal court ruling that has temporarily limited its access to Treasury Department payment systems.
“It’s a little bumpy right now, but those bumps are going to be worth it in the long run,” Ernst maintained.
The View From Democrats
As their base clamors for a fight against Trump’s agenda, Democrats are ready for battle with DOGE’s unelected billionaire chief.
They see plenty of upside in illuminating the negative consequences of DOGE’s work, aware that Musk’s public approval ratings are not close to Trump’s. And they point to acknowledgments from some Republicans that DOGE can’t close USAID, for one, without consulting Congress.
“Elon Musk is unelected, unvetted and unqualified — he does not have the legal authority to dismantle entire agencies,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., during a partywide protest against Trump’s pick for his budget chief, Russ Vought.
“Yet in Trump’s America,” she added, “the size of his bank account and how far he is willing to bend the knee is enough for our president to bestow on him unchecked power.”
Shelby’s view
DOGE’s speed is reflective of the Trump administration’s broader plan for his second term: Make decisions quickly, and make a lot of them. As Trump ally Steve Bannon said in 2019, “all we have to do is flood the zone.”
Eventually, though, the flood runs into a levee. And there’s at least some acknowledgement by those involved in DOGE that they will face roadblocks; some have already been thrown up. DOGE seems designed to do as much as it can until it’s told to stop.
The courts aside, Trump may be the only person powerful enough to curb DOGE. Musk’s embrace of a shoot first, ask questions later mentality has frustrated some in the president’s network, and he may yet step into an area that Trump sees as too far.
It’s less clear that the political risk of animating Democrats will be enough to slow down DOGE, whose work is designed to wind down in time for the 2026 midterms. Those elections could prove the most potent referendum on Musk’s show of force.
Notable
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DOGE has also gained access to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s systems, and job cuts are seen as likely, as ABC reported.
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A DOGE staffer resigned on Thursday amid links to a now-deleted social media account that made racist posts, The Wall Street Journal reported.
