DOGE Now Reportedly ‘A Shell of Its Former Self’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The “Department of Government Efficiency” once helmed by Elon Musk is now but a husk of the unofficial agency it once was.
Shortly after taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump named Musk to lead the group, which soon got to work gutting staff and spending at various government agencies. Musk, who was named a special government employee after spending nearly $300 million to return Trump to the White House, initially claimed he could find $2 trillion in “savings.”
When Musk departed the administration in May, the DOGE website alleged it “saved” just $175 billion. However, even that figure was bandied about using dubious math. The billionaire’s exit from the administration came at the end of the 130-day limit that special government employees may serve within a 365-day period. But behind the scenes, Trump officials repeatedly clashed with Musk, who reportedly wore out his welcome. Quite infamously, Musk alleged that the president’s name was in the files of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Politico’s West Wing Playbook on Thursday night, DOGE isn’t what it used to be and is “a shell of its former self”:
For six months, any General Services Administration employee who wanted to enter the epicenter of ELON MUSK’s DOGE on the sixth floor of the agency’s headquarters had to pass an armed guard who checked names against a pre-approved list.
Now, the guard is gone. So are the signs in the elevator next to sixth floor buttons reading “Authorized Access Only.”
It’s emblematic of DOGE’s retreat from the center of the Trump administration’s orbit. The once- feared crew that barged into offices and slashed jobs at an unprecedented pace is a shell of its former self, owing to departures, lawsuits, bureaucratic roadblocks and, crucially, the loss of its chainsawer-in-chief: Musk.
The report went on to say that at least eight of the original core staffers have departed the government.
“It was never the plan for the highest levels of DOGE officials to make a career out of the government,” one senior White House official told Politico.
Nowadays, DOGE is reportedly more focused on mundane tasks such as deleting idle websites and government phone lines, though it is also working on an AI initiative meant to spur government innovation in that realm.
