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Elon Musk’s time as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is drawing to a close, but the national debt and runaway spending remain virtually unchanged despite the incessant media coverage of the cost-cutting effort.
The Tesla CEO’s departure wraps up a government stint marked by mass layoffs and a flood of legal battles over DOGE’s various moves to cut down the federal bureaucracy. Musk entered the role with bold ambitions of slashing as much as $2 trillion in federal waste, but as he prepares to step back from the Trump administration, only a small fraction of those cuts have materialized.
President Donald Trump brought Musk on board as a “special government employee” shortly after taking office in January, tasking the billionaire with eliminating unnecessary federal spending. As a “special government employee,” Musk was limited to 130 working days per year for the administration, with his appointment set to expire around May 30. (RELATED: How A ‘Nonpartisan’ Government Budget Office May Be Misleading Lawmakers On Spending As GOP Megabill Looms Large)
As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025
In the months following his appointment to DOGE, Musk faced declining sales of his Tesla vehicles as well as a surge in acts of vandalism against his products by consumers outraged by his efforts to dramatically reduce government.
Despite the personal costs incurred by his work for the Trump administration, DOGE produced roughly $175 billion in savings, at least according to its own estimates. However, the DOGE figure has been disputed as being overstated due to accounting errors or incorrect assumptions; the American Enterprise Institute has calculated that the actual savings are likely closer to $10 billion.
For context, the federal government spent $6.1 trillion in fiscal year 2023 while running a $1.7 trillion deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Some observers, such as Competitive Enterprise Institute senior economist Ryan Young, say that while Musk and DOGE had “good intentions” to root out government waste, they underestimated the challenge of making large structural changes.
“[DOGE] got the order of operations wrong,” Young told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They went after slashing payroll first and agency responsibility second. That’s not the way to do things. Now, we have regulations and agency responsibilities that are still in full effect, and you don’t have people to administer them.”
Furthermore, Young noted that although DOGE initiated the cuts to staffing and entire departments, like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid — which represent the vast majority of the federal government’s spending — remained relatively unscathed.
“If DOGE was going to do one thing, it should have been entitlement reform. But President Trump took that off the table almost right away,” Young said.
Setting aside disputes over the true extent of DOGE’s savings, the House recently passed its version of the GOP reconciliation bill, and some forecasters have estimated the package will add trillions to the budget deficit. The bill has drawn criticism from many Republican members of Congress, and even Musk himself, for probably failing to reduce the size of government.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said to CBS News in an interview airing Sunday. “I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 05: Protestors demonstrate holding signs referring to DOGE at a ‘Hands Off!’ protest against the Trump administration on April 5, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Protests against Trump administration policies and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are being held nationwide in what organizers are calling a National Day of Action. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Despite the modest cuts to federal spending, not everybody believes DOGE was a failure.
“The true purpose is to eliminate wasteful spending, but [DOGE] was never intended to do that in just the short amount of time Elon Musk would be there,” Stewart Whitson, director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told the DCNF. “The plan was for Musk to get the plan off the ground under the leadership of President Trump and use the reach he has on social media to bring wasteful spending to the attention of American citizens.”
To that end, Musk wrote on X that the “DOGE mission will only strengthen over time” and become “a way of life throughout government.” The White House has communicated the same message.
Despite largely negative media coverage and mixed public opinion on both DOGE and Elon Musk, a recent Cato Institute survey found that Americans think the federal government wastes more money today than a decade prior and overwhelmingly believe there is considerable waste, fraud and abuse.
Whitson also emphasized that DOGE’s savings are not “pocket change,” and that the cuts were important to Americans for their dollar value and because they terminated funding for what he described as “destructive” initiatives, such as so-called “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) programs.
However, Congressional action will be required to ensure these changes are permanent and prevent future administrations from reversing them. The White House is expected to send Congress a $9.4 billion rescissions package to codify some of the DOGE cuts, which Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he is “eager and ready to act on.”
For the GOP, there may be a silver lining to be found in voter turnout in the upcoming midterms, according to Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster with North Star Opinion Research
“The big problem Republicans face for next year is getting their base to turn out,” McHenry said. “DOGE certainly alienated some democrats, but they were already alienated. What it does do is tell the base that we are trying to do what you sent us here to do. And it also gives Republicans next year the ability to say, ‘We tried to do it at the executive level. We couldn’t. We need more Republicans in Congress to get these things passed.’”
Though Musk is stepping away from government matters to focus on his multiple businesses, DOGE is expected to continue operating until July 4, 2026.
The White House did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, while a representative from DOGE could not be reached.
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