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Elon Musk – Photo: Christopher Furlong (Getty Images)
Elon Musk — the world’s richest man alive — has been handed his own task force designed to reign in government spending. Here’s what you need to know about DOGE, which President Donald Trump officially created on Monday.
What is DOGE?
DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, began as an offhand comment from Musk last August during a publicized conversation with Trump.
“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and, and just ensures that the taxpayer money to the taxpayers, hard earned money is spent in a good way,” Musk told Trump during an X Spaces event. “And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”
Its name doesn’t actually come from Musk himself. An X user who goes by “Sir Doge of the Coin” posted the idea, which is itself a reference to DogeCoin, a cryptocurrency based on Kabosu, a viral Shina Inu. Musk — the “Dogefather” is a big fan of DogeCoin, which sparked the meme-coin craze that eventually infected Trump.
In early September, about a week after Musk repeated his willingness to serve, Trump announced that Musk has agreed to lead a government effiency commission.
High expectations
By October, Musk was openly campaigning for Trump across the key swing state of Pennsylvania and running “get-out-the-vote” campaigns through his America PAC. It was later revealed through regulatory filings that Musk spent at least $250 million to help re-elect Trump.
During Trump’s late-October rally in New York City, he claimed that his DOGE group could slash $2 trillion in spending from the federal budget. The federal government spent more than $6.7 trillion last fiscal year, with the largest payments directed toward Social Security, Medicare, interest payments, defense spending, and other assorted health costs.
“I think we could do at least $2 trillion,” Musk said at the time. “Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.”
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the one-time GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur, were later tapped by Trump to lead DOGE. In a Novembereditorial, the pair said they would use the planned DOGE group to recommend ways to slash federal spending.
Key target areas included regulations they deemed burdensome, work-from-home policies for federal staff, funding for non-government organizations, and large-scale headcount reduction.
“Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited,” they wrote.
By Jan. 9, Musk has changed his tune on his overall goal for DOGE. During an interview with former Microsoft (MSFT) executive Mark Penn, he said cutting $2 trillion was the “best-case outcome,” not a minimum goal for success. “I think if we try for $2 trillion, then we have a good chance of getting $1 [trillion],” he said.
Trump’s mandate
The president on Monday sighed DOGE into law through an executive order. He rebranded the United States Digital Service (USDS), a decade-old technology unit created after the faulty launch of HealthCare.gov, as the United States DOGE Service.
“The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization” has a July 4, 2026, expiration date. Trump has said ending the group then would be the “perfect gift to America” on the 250th anniversary of the Continental Congress adopting the Declaration of Independence.
The order outlines a plan to develop a team of at least four employees per federal agency, including a team lead, an engineer, a human resources specialist, and an attorney. Agency leaders will have 30 days to assemble such a team. The USDS itself will continue its prior mission of modernizing software, network infrastructure, and information technology systems, just under a new name.
The department is also tasked to work with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on a federal hiring plan, according to a second executive order. It calls for a plan to put an end to any diversity requirements, which Musk has vehemently opposed, and the use of modern technology to improve hiring.
“[Musk is] getting an office for about 20 people we’re hiring to make sure these get implemented,” Trump told reporters on Monday, referring to his executive orders, as he signed DOGE into law.
Trump’s orders don’t mention DOGE’s primary goal, which has always been to slash regulations and cut federal agencies, such as the Education Department. However, Musk could use the former USDS’s work to effect dozens of federal agencies.
Additionally, DOGE is now officially housed within the executive branch. That’s a major departure from initial plans to operate as a “outside of government” group akin to an advisory committee. Such a structure would have allowed Musk to skirt ethics concerns.
Under the current makeup of DOGE, Musk will likely be named as USDS administrator, a job that reports directly to the White House’s chief of staff, or designated as a special government employee. Both would require Musk to follow ethics guidelines, although special government employees are subject to more limited rules surrounding conflicts of interest.
The billionaire’s SpaceX, Neuralink, X, and Tesla (TSLA) are collectively the subject of more than 20 recent investigations or reviews; Musk was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission just last week. Tesla and SpaceX have received billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Congressional aid
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed interest in helping the group, although the newly formed Congressional DOGE caucus is still overwhelmingly dominated by Republicans. Each lawmaker has their own targets in mind.
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna plans to target defense spending, as does Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who is leading the DOGE Caucus in the Senate, has called for cuts to funding for electric vehicle charging stations and for the government to sell “thousands” of vacant or underutilized buildings.
House Democrats have named New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury to lead her party’s members on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s subcommittee designed to work with DOGE. She’s joined by five other Democrats, including high-profile progressives like California Rep. Robert Garcia and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, The Hill reports.
The House GOP tapped controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, to chair the oversight subcommittee, where she will be joined by several other Republicans, including Texas Rep. Brandon Gill.
The first cut is the deepest
In an unsurprising development, Ramaswamy was pushed out of DOGE, making him the first casualty of the group’s cuts. Ramaswamy, who is now preparing to campaign to be Ohio’s next governor, had been expected to focus on regulatory cuts and the administrative state, The Washington Post reported.
But tensions emerged as Ramaswamy approached DOGE’s problems from a “constitutional perspective,” eying budgeting processes and legal pathways to scrap regulations. On the other hand, Musk employed a tech-first perspective, leveraging software, artificial intelligence and data mining to make cuts, according to the Post.
Musk reportedly lost interest in what Ramaswamy could provide, eventually supporting his decision to run for governor or fill Vice President J.D. Vance’s vacated Senate seat. Ramaswamy also disagreed with DOGE’s position as a unit housed within the executive branch, a departure from the original vision for the group.
“It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I’m confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government,” Ramaswamy wrote Monday on X.
Although he’s gone, DOGE has already started fulfilling part of his vision.
Through executive orders, Trump has issued a temporary freeze on hiring and regulatory actions, ordered federal agencies and departments to move to end work-from-home arrangements, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring policies.
By 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, all federal DEI employees will be placed on paid leave as all related offices and programs will be closed, NBC News reports. By Jan. 31, federal agencies are required to submit a written plan to dismiss those employees. DOGE is also reviewing a 19-page report that identified more than $120 billion in annual spending on DEI, the Post reported.
Litigation
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) along with Public Citizen and the State Democracy Defenders Fund, on Monday sued Trump and the OMB over DOGE just minutes after his administration formally began, arguing that they had violated federal transparency requirements.
That lawsuit was filed under the pretense that DOGE was a federal advisory committee, rather than the eventual executive branch unit it became.
“AFGE will not stand idly by as a secretive group of ultra-wealthy individuals with major conflicts of interest attempt to deregulate themselves and give their own companies sweetheart government contracts while firing civil servants and dismantling the institutions designed to serve the American people,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley, who represents 800,000 workers, said in a statement.
Another coalition, which includes the Center for Auto Safety and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also sued over an alleged lack of transparency with DOGE’s efforts. The Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal judge for public records related to DOGE and Trump’s transition team, while the National Security Counselors filed a fourth lawsuit.
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