Update 861 — DOGE
Less Barking But Still Biting
DOGE’s initial visibility, assault on the civil service, budget cuts, and firings drew unwanted scrutiny and criticism, making it the focal point for the backlash against Trump, Musk, and the GOP’s efforts to reshape the federal government. Since then, the Trump administration’s actions, from immigration to tariffs, are effectively distracting from DOGE, which has taken a back seat in the national public discourse.
But DOGE is still operational and causing harm to the country. Essential government services – such as the third rail of American politics itself, Social Security – have been put at risk by DOGE’s careless and haphazard approach to “cutting government waste.” Additionally, Musk exploited DOGE as a means to increase his government influence in ways that benefit him personally, while Trump continues to use DOGE as a tool for his own abuses of power. As a result, DOGE has helped reinvigorate the anti-Trump resistance, with Musk and DOGE becoming lightning rods for dissatisfaction with the regime. Musk’s embarrassing face plant in his support for the losing candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race seems to have forced him to take a lower profile in the administration. We cover this and more below.
Best,
Dana
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to gut agencies essential to the smooth functioning of the federal government, seek and gain access to sensitive information on millions of Americans, and concentrate more power into the hands of Trump and unelected billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk. While the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on the federal government, attacks on the rule of law, and unending controversies have dominated national attention in recent weeks, DOGE’s damaging work persists below the radar. Today, we discuss what DOGE has actually accomplished so far, what it is really trying to do, and what its future might be in the face of considerable backlash.
Musk’s Promises vs. DOGE’s Reality
The (Lack of) Taxpayer Savings
Elon Musk’s biggest promise was that DOGE would generate huge savings for US taxpayers by cutting government spending. Back in January, Musk promised that DOGE would cut $2 trillion from the federal government’s annual spending. Now Musk claims that DOGE will save taxpayers $150 billion in slashed spending. This implicitly acknowledges that despite blustering that the federal government is a “target-rich environment” for waste elimination, reduction is challenging and requires the approval of Congress.
Even Musk’s revised claim is vastly overstated. As previously covered, Musk and company have a history of exaggerating their successes and filling their “wall of receipts” with what we will charitably refer to as errors. This has not changed in the months since. According to a New York Times analysis, $92.2 billion of the $150 million purported savings are not itemized and cannot be verified. As for the remainder, DOGE continues to make errors when calculating these savings. Some examples include:
- A $1.9 billion IRS contract that was actually canceled under Biden.
- The “cancellation” of a $1.75 billion grant to a vaccine nonprofit that had already been paid in full.
- The cancellation of contracts whose savings will not be realized until FY 2026 or later.
Without greater transparency, it is not clear how much DOGE has succeeded in its goals to cut government spending, but it is safe to say that the real number is far less than $150 billion.
This fundamental failure in DOGE’s mission is reflected in the Trump administration’s own actions to formalize government spending cuts. Last week, the White House asked Congress to cut $9.3 billion in funding from some of DOGE’s targets, such as public broadcasting and USAID. These rescission packages are small, despite aligning with the GOP’s goals to make DOGE’s cuts legitimate and lawsuit-proof.
This reduction speaks to two realities:
- It shows the difficulty DOGE has had in producing verifiable cuts.
- The Hill GOP is highly wary of including any budget cuts through rescission when it is fighting tooth and nail to bring together the reconciliation package, which will be the main vehicle of the Trump administration’s fiscal policy.
Hindering Government Efficiency
As for DOGE’s quest to make the government more efficient, it is having the opposite effect. Elon Musk’s Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things” has translated into DOGE moving rashly and haphazardly through federal agencies and damaging them to the point of crippling functionality for essential services.
This paradox is most apparent in DOGE’s actions at the Social Security Administration (SSA). The agency that 69 million Americans rely on for their monthly benefits has been reduced to “complete, utter chaos,” thanks to DOGE’s actions. DOGE sparked controversy when it was reported that SSA planned to close 26 of its 47 field offices, along with firing thousands of workers. The SSA later stated that these claims were false, but has failed to provide greater clarity. The termination of phone services for claims caused an even larger outcry. The termination of phone services for claims as a method of combating fraud by requiring in-person inquiries garnered enough backlash that the Trump administration was forced to back down.
DOGE remains committed to completely rebuilding the SSA’s code base in a matter of months. It goes beyond ambitious and edges toward insanity, as the SSA relies on tens of millions of lines of code written on a legacy system using the COBOL coding language. Such a task would take years, not months. In the meantime, 69 million Americans could see their benefits put at risk if the current system is rendered dysfunctional.
The IRS’s workforce has been cut to the bone by DOGE, leaving it severely understaffed in the middle of tax season. IRS enforcement measures are expected to become more regressive, allowing wealth tax cheats a greater capacity to avoid their fair share, and delaying 2025 tax refunds. These cuts will sharply reduce revenues, especially as layoffs increase. The Trump administration also plans to eliminate the IRS’s popular Direct File program, making tax filing more difficult and expensive for millions of Americans for the benefit of companies such as TurboTax, which do not want taxpayers to have a free and easy alternative to their services.
DOGE’s cuts to the civil service could lead to disaster. DOGE has purged the staff in charge of the IT and cybersecurity infrastructure at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The result of these cuts could put the health records of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk, as well as data on clinical trials and lots of other sensitive health data. DOGE is likely putting other sensitive information at risk: a whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) told PBS News that DOGE’s access to its sensitive information is putting the NLRB at the risk of a “significant cybersecurity breach.” Last week, it emerged that nearly all of the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service – the team in charge of much of the US Military’s IT support – had resigned en masse thanks to DOGE’s intrusions.
DOGE’s efforts so far have saved taxpayers little money while severely undermining the federal government’s functionality, the exact opposite of what the Department of Government Efficiency claims it is out to do.
What DOGE is Really Up To
DOGE is failing to cut government waste or increase government efficiency, but is intentionally undermining key agencies that could benefit Musk and Trump, both financially and politically, and at the expense of the American people.
Undermining Key Agencies
Agencies that Musk has issues with are being crippled and undermined. The CFPB could be in charge of regulating X/Twitter if Musk succeeds in turning it into a financial platform. Since Musk has set his sights on the agency, which he has yet to kill outright, work at the bureau has largely ground to a halt. Additionally, as a billionaire, Musk benefits from undermining the IRS and making it ineffective against wealthy tax cheats. Finally, Musk has a bizarre vendetta against the SSA and perhaps Social Security as a whole, inaccurately calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” in his interview with Joe Rogan.
Exploiting Sensitive Data
In addition to gutting key agencies, DOGE has continued accessing the sensitive data of hundreds of millions of Americans, which it is keen to use for Trump’s and Musk’s own ends. Musk and DOGE now have access to people’s private data through the IRS, the Treasury, HHS, and the Department of Labor. Just last week, a whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) explained to NPR how DOGE was not only accessing data that included everything from employees who wanted to form unions and proprietary business information, but that DOGE staffers were sending data outside of the NLRB to unknown locations, which for security purposes is never meant to happen.
So, what is DOGE doing with this data? DOGE is using data from the IRS, HUD, and other agencies to target immigrants. At the IRS, confidential data is being shared with law enforcement to target immigrants believed to be undocumented, a practice that the IRS steered clear of up until now, since it discourages undocumented immigrants from filing taxes, in turn reducing revenue for the federal government. At HUD, DOGE is incorporating available data into their plan to kick mixed-status households – those where only some family members are undocumented – out of public housing.
DOGE’s use of this data violates federal data privacy laws. Additionally, there is little indication that Musk and company plan to stop with undocumented immigrants, as there are plenty of disturbing possibilities as to how this data could be used. With the NLRB data alone, companies could target employees seeking to form a union or illicitly gather data on their competitors. With an administration so intent on targeting Trump’s perceived enemies, it would be naive to assume that Musk and company would not be willing to use the data it has collected to settle personal scores and harass dissenters.
Expanding Musk’s/Trump’s Power
Trump has used the first months of his second administration to expand his powers. While his efforts are not exclusively tied to DOGE, he has used the mass firings and the desecration of other guardrails to test how much abuse of power Republicans will tolerate. Musk has also used his position to expand his own authority. Musk’s work on the $5 million “gold card” visa, where rich immigrants could basically buy their way into the country, shows that Musk’s influence has expanded beyond simply cutting waste and into reshaping parts of government that on the surface have nothing to do with DOGE’s mission. As an unelected “special government employee” who theoretically only has 130 days to effect change, Musk has gathered power with few formal checks. The greatest check on Musk and DOGE’s power, it seems, is the extent to which it becomes a political liability.
The Backlash Against DOGE
Musk and DOGE are becoming a real political liability for the Trump administration. Lawsuits continue to pile up, Musk himself is becoming an easy target for Democrats in off-year elections, and it appears that Trump’s own cabinet is becoming sick of the unelected billionaire. With Musk’s involvement with the administration likely costing the GOP a high-profile race in Wisconsin and Tesla’s stock values taking a tumble, Musk seems to be pulling back from the political spotlight for now.
Battle in the Courts
Last time we covered DOGE, both the “agency” and Musk were racking up a long series of lawsuits from state AGs, unions, consumer advocates, and others. Over a month later, the flow of lawsuits is steady, with wins and losses for both DOGE and its detractors. One of DOGE’s biggest wins was at the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 that the government could follow through with laying off 16,000 employees while lawsuits against the Trump administration’s firings played out in lower courts. Federal appeals courts have further lifted court orders blocking mass layoffs at USAID and elsewhere. Opponents to these firings are still seeing many of Musk’s desired agency cuts and dismantlings put on hold; most recently, a federal judge blocked DOGE’s efforts to fire most of the CFPB’s remaining employees as she mulls over whether the Trump administration violated a court order specifically to prevent the dismantling of the agency.
DOGE’s access to sensitive data is being challenged in court. Last week, a federal judge temporarily limited DOGE’s access to Social Security data, which a lawsuit brought by labor unions and retirees states violates federal data privacy laws and puts this data at security risk. Trump’s attempts to freeze federal funding, which is often intertwined with DOGE, are also facing opposition from the courts. Trump’s planned cuts to the National Institute of Health’s research at universities and hospitals, which a judge issued a TRO on back in February and has yet to be lifted. One of the most notable lawsuits against DOGE is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. DOGE, where a non-profit focused on government accountability is trying to force DOGE to release emails and communications to the public that could shine a light on DOGE’s operations and overall legality. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction for DOGE to release the emails last month, but no big updates have come on the case since.
A continued area of concern as these lawsuits play out is the role they play in Trump’s efforts to grab more power. Trump is trying to vastly expand his power as president and has used these lawsuits to feel out where the guardrails can be weakened or eliminated. If the courts ultimately decide against DOGE in a way that seriously reigns in Trump’s power, will Trump even listen? And who will be able to stop him if he crosses that line?
Battle in Public Opinion and Congress
DOGE and Elon Musk have taken a step back from the spotlight in recent weeks, in part, because of other controversies surrounding the Trump administration, like Trump’s tariff rollout and his attempts to deport and imprison immigrants without due process. Additionally, Musk’s presence has become increasingly toxic. Musk’s favorability rating since the beginning of the Trump administration has taken a nosedive, with his aggregate favorability now 13 percentage points underwater.
Source: The Silver Bulletin
A national poll by NBC News shows that, while a narrow plurality of Americans think that DOGE is a good idea, a majority of Americans have serious reservations about its actions so far. Ironically, when YouGov polled Americans about which federal agencies should be cut back in February, DOGE was one of the top picks.
This backlash to Musk and DOGE seems to have resulted in real, material losses for the GOP and the Trump administration. Musk put himself front and center in the race for the open Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, throwing some $20 million behind conservative candidate Brad Schimel and appearing at his rallies. Musk’s money could not buy the election; liberal Susan Crawford won with approximately 54 percent to 45 percent. Whatever ambiguity about Musk’s influence on the race disappeared when post-election polls of Wisconsinite voters showed that voters net disapproved of Musk’s involvement in the race by a margin of 35 percentage points. Another 30 percent of voters said that Musk’s endorsement of Brad Schimel made them less likely to vote for him, with only 5 percent saying that it made them more likely. While the backlash against Musk is not specifically centered on DOGE, it does mean that Musk’s involvement is becoming politically toxic for both the project itself and possibly the entire Trump administration.
Musk’s waning political influence is felt by the White House; members of the Trump administration have become less secretive in their distaste for the billionaire’s involvement in the president’s agenda. Musk included himself in the blowback against Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, and Senior White House trade aide Peter Navarro publicly challenged him as simply “a car assembler.”
Musk hit back at Navarro over social media, calling him “truly a moron.” Navarro later claimed that he and Musk were not feuding, but the fact remains that a prominent member of the Trump administration was eager to publicly push back against Musk. Musk’s ability to influence Trump’s decision-making also seems to be in decline: last week, Trump removed his fourth acting IRS chief this year after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained that Musk had called for his appointment without Bessent’s approval.
It should come as no surprise that yesterday, Musk announced to Tesla’s shareholders that he would spend significantly less time working at DOGE starting in May, much to their delight. His reduced role in the administration has been anticipated for weeks: in early April, Trump announced to his inner circle that Musk would be leaving soon. While Trump insisted that this was not a reflection of his own disapproval of Musk and that the billionaire would still be a prominent part of his administration, the outcome of the clear Wisconsin loss is likely a factor. Musk also faces personal reasons to step back: Tesla has suffered immensely as the company itself has become the focus of anti-Musk backlash. In the first quarter, Tesla’s automotive revenues dropped by 20 percent, its stock dropped 41 percent from its recent highs, and its sales dropped 13 percent as EV owners, who tend to lean politically liberal, are now more likely to protest at a Tesla dealership than buy a car there. Faced with his company in crisis and significant pushback from the public, it seems that Musk is less interested in being the public face of DOGE.
What the Future Could Hold for DOGE
Where does DOGE go from here? Elon Musk might be taking a step back from his involvement in politics, but he likely won’t be gone entirely. The cuts Musk and company called for will likely end up in the GOP’s reconciliation bill, but with DOGE’s proposed cuts already falling far short of expectations, this could just be the traditional Republican spending cut goals and not DOGE specifically fueling the bill.
Musk’s projects at DOGE will likely continue unless the courts intervene. As special government employees, DOGE presumably only has a few more months to continue its activities before its allotted 130 days are up. Even once that time is up, however, many members of DOGE have now entrenched themselves in federal agencies. DOGE staffer Ryan Wunderly is now officially an employee at the Treasury, seemingly as a way to get around a judge’s order blocking his access to Treasury data. Employees like Wunderly will presumably remain in the government even after the end of DOGE, meaning that Musk’s influence will outlast the “agency.”
One final question looming over DOGE is whether the legality and constitutionality of its authority will even hold up in the courts. SCOTUS may have cleared the way for mass layoffs to temporarily take place while litigation makes its way through the courts, but that in and of itself does not give much indication of whether many facets of DOGE, such as how much authority it could legally hold without Congress’s expressed approval, would hold up.
Conclusion
Public opposition to the “agency” and Musk in particular seems to be making a difference. Many administration officials clearly do not feel as beholden to Musk as they used to, and the voters of Wisconsin proved that democracy can still be a useful tool to push back against the influence of oligarchs. That said, the threat of DOGE is far from gone, and as things stand, its most sinister actions risk getting drowned out by everything else going on in the administration. The fight against Musk and DOGE must continue.