The entrance into government of Elon Musk and his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was one of the dominant stories of the first two months or so of the second Trump Administration.
Just about every day for weeks, there were stories about DOGE going into a government agency, getting access to files, firing people, and eliminating government contracts.
Many of the cuts had a culture war component, and seemingly had less to do with government efficiency than with Musk’s obsession with defeating the “woke mind virus.”
Other aspects were based on untruths, such as the idea that government agencies’ subscriptions to Politico and the New York Times were “subsidies” of those news outlets.
There were media fights and legal cases about whether DOGE had the power to do those things, as well as arguments over whether DOGE was saving the government any significant amount of money. Through it all, Elon Musk was posting to X constantly, often with wildly misleading claims about what the department was actually up to.
Elon Musk and the DOGE Reign of Terror
The DOGE reign of terror began after Musk donated a massive amount of money to entities associated with Trump’s re-election campaign, after Musk had clashed with Trump during his first term and had not even endorsed Trump until the day of his assassination attempt last summer.
When Trump won, Musk took time out of his busy entrepreneurial schedule to become a “special government employee.”
Now, as laid out in a long new piece in The Atlantic, the DOGE epoch is essentially over. Musk is no longer working for the government on a day-to-day basis; his electric car company, Tesla, has tanked in value, and Musk even said in an interview this week with Bloomberg News that he plans to significantly reduce his political giving going forward.
Musk vs. Washington
The “Decline and Fall of Elon Musk” story in The Atlantic has a lot of juicy details, including telling the story of a shouting match in the White House between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, over whose pick would be chosen as IRS commissioner.
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was shouting at Elon Musk in the halls of the West Wing last month, loud enough for Donald Trump to hear and in a language that he could certainly understand,” the Atlantic story by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer says.
While Musk and Trump remain on good terms, according to the reporting, Musk has “alienated” many in Washington, and has “found himself isolated within the upper reaches of the Trump administration, having failed to build necessary alliances and irritating many of the department and agency heads he was ostensibly there to help.”
How Much Did He Save?
Musk had claimed that he would save around $2 trillion with his DOGE actions, which set off dreams of a “DOGE dividend,” arriving as checks in the pockets of every taxpayer.
But in truth, DOGE ended up saving nowhere close to that amount, now claiming that the true savings are $160 billion. And according to an analysis by Partnership for Public Service (PSP), as cited by CBS News, DOGE’s adventures have cost nearly that much.
According to that analysis, DOGE spent $135 billion just to save that $160 billion. And that may be an undercount.
“PSP’s estimate is based on the $270 billion in annual compensation costs for the federal workforce, calculating the impact of DOGE’s actions, from paid leave to productivity hits,” CBS said in its write-up. “The $135 billion cost to taxpayers doesn’t include the expense of defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE’s actions, nor the impact of estimated lost tax collections due to staff cuts at the IRS.”
The White House, however, denied the study’s claims.
“The continued attempts to sow doubt in the massive accomplishments of this never-before-seen effort to make government more efficient speaks more about the illegitimacy of those peddling these falsehoods than good work of DOGE,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told CBS.
About the Author
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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