Earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk, the one-time DOGE leader and Trump adviser, sat down with Katie Miller on her podcast to reflect on his time with the administration. He called DOGE's work "a little bit successful" but said he wouldn't do it again if given the chance. "We were somewhat successful, Musk said. "I mean we stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was just entirely wasteful."
His four months leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) coincided with a visible decline in Tesla's vehicle sales, and it cost the brand its position as a market leader in many markets worldwide. Musk previously stated that he was not satisfied with the DOGE savings during his tenure, describing the results as somewhat successful, according to the Associated Press. Musk made these remarks on a podcast with his current aide and former advisor at DOGE, conservative influencer Katie Miller. And he added that if he could do it again, he wouldn't do DOGE.
After Donald Trump curiously started referring to the Department of Government Efficiency exclusively in the past tense, an official finally confirmed Sunday that DOGE "doesn't exist." Talking to Reuters, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor confirmed that DOGE-a government agency notoriously created by Elon Musk to rapidly and dramatically slash government agencies-was terminated more than eight months early.
When asked about the status of DOGE earlier this month, White House Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told , "That doesn't exist." While it is no longer a "centralized entity," DOGE's work will continue through the OPM, as Kupor said in a follow-up post on social media that "the principles of DOGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse; re-shaping the federal workforce; making efficiency a first-class citizen; etc."
In January, Borges started a new job as the Social Security Administration's chief data officer, overseeing some of the most sensitive data systems in the federal government-including databases containing Social Security numbers, addresses, citizenship status, and benefits records of nearly every American. Or at least that was the job description. Instead, he spent seven months struggling to get basic visibility into the systems he was statutorily responsible for,
A new report from Senate Democrats claims members of Elon Musk's DOGE team have access to the Social Security Numbers of all Americans in a cloud server lacking verified security measures, despite an internal assessment of potential "catastrophic" risk. The report, released by Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), cites numerous disclosures from whistleblowers, including one who said a worst-case scenario could involve having to re-issue SSNs to everyone in the country.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who worked closely with Musk during the Tesla CEO's time as the face of the Department of Government Efficiency, expressed disapproval toward how Musk handled firings at DOGE. In an interview with "The Axios Show"that aired on Friday, Lutnick told show host Mike Allen that Musk approached DOGE in the same way he approached Twitter, now X, where he rapidly cut 80% of staff, and that Musk "thought that example worked for government."
A backend nerve center for the government with procurement, technology and real estate duties that cross agencies, GSA was an early stronghold for the controversial DOGE effort. Tech billionaire and then-DOGE head Elon Musk himself visited the agency in January. DOGE associates were even spending nights in a GSA building in D.C., although during Ehikian's first town hall at the agency, he told employees that there was no DOGE team at GSA when asked about the efficiency group.
Some operatives from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are joining Airbnb cofounder and DOGE member Joe Gebbia 's new National Design Studio, sources tell WIRED. Gebbia's NDS is a federal project tasked with redesigning government web pages and digital services. Like DOGE and the US DOGE Service (formerly US Digital Service), it's also an office located within the executive office of the president.
A whistleblower accused officials tied to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of putting the personal details of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk by uploading the Social Security Administration's (SSA) most sensitive database into a vulnerable cloud server. Charles Borges, the SSA's chief data officer, made the allegation in a complaint filed with the Office of Special Counsel and Congress in which he warned that DOGE's handling of the so-called Numident file, which contains every Social Security number ever issued, exposed the data to enormous vulnerabilities.
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has left the United States Institute of Peace's headquarters in disarray, with reports of water damage and vermin.
