Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has done many things in his career – he’s made electric cars, co-founded what eventually became PayPal, built rocket ships and received contracts from NASA, and even made things like flamethrowers that were cleverly called “Not a Flamethrower” as a gag. And now, he’s been tasked with essentially auditing and raiding government agencies by President Donald Trump in the form of the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short.
Musk, who was previously known for being apolitical and unbiased towards both sides of the American political spectrum, historically donated to both Democratic and Republican causes – even supporting rapper, music producer, and fashion designer Ye [formerly known as Kanye West] for President in the 2020 election. He also supported Former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Former Secretary of State & First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Former President Joe Biden in 2020. In the 2020 Democratic primaries for President, Musk endorsed a somewhat perennial candidate, Andrew Yang – who is known for his support of various new political ideas such as ranked-choice voting (or RCV) and universal basic income (or UBI).
Once Former President Biden took office, however, Musk expressed that he no longer supported the man he endorsed and voted for in the 2020 elections. He began to express opposition to the Build Back Better Act, a piece of legislation based on the Build Back Better Plan; this was a key part of Biden’s campaign in 2020 and a major aspect of his initial policy intentions for his presidency. The plan is often criticized by people from all sides of the political landscape, with some criticizing the plan for the massive changes it proposed – while others critiqued it for not going far enough. In the United States Senate, the bill was tied 50-50 when it was called for a vote, and former Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass it through the Senate and onto Biden’s desk, where it was subsequently signed into law by Biden in 2022.
That same year, Musk came out and said that he would begin to support Republican candidates running for office, and subsequently donated over $50 million to a group called Citizens for Sanity – a political action committee (or PAC for short) that is aligned with the beliefs and policies of the Republican Party. In the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Musk supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign, donating $10 million. Despite this support from Musk, DeSantis dropped out of the primaries and endorsed the eventual winner, Donald Trump.
From June 2023 up until January of 2024, Musk also began hosting multiple X Spaces [formerly Twitter Spaces] that focused on different campaigns, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s independent campaign for President, Former Rep. Dean Phillips’ longshot primary bid against Joe Biden, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Republican presidential primary campaign, as well. Not long after, Musk became a vocal supporter and frequent donor for Donald Trump, while still holding short on an actual endorsement of his campaign. That was until the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July of that year. By the end of the election cycle, Musk was the largest individual donor in the entire 2024 election.
During the campaign cycle in August, Trump and Musk had a conversation that led to the President offering Musk an “advisory role” in his administration should he win, and Musk accepted Trump’s offer. Around November, Musk suggested that the recently announced Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could help cut the US budget, consolidate the number of agencies, and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – and that the final stage of the plan would be “deleting itself.”
Trump was clear immediately following the reveal of DOGE that the Department would be co-led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who challenged him in the 2024 Republican primaries – despite remaining loyal to him and his policy during his campaign. However, once inauguration day came and went, it was clear that Vivek Ramaswamy had, at some point, rejected the offer he had initially accepted from the President. Instead, Ramaswamy has seemingly alluded to and filed paperwork for a run for governor in his home state of Ohio.
However, since its formation, the Department has faced scrutiny and criticism by both the press and working Americans across the country. There have been numerous instances of the department “accidentally firing” essential workers in charge of things such as nuclear weapons, and the department has desperately attempted to rehire these individuals after realizing their error. These cuts towards nuclear weapon management were part of DOGE’s crackdown on the Department of Energy, which resulted in over 1,500 workers in various positions being axed from the federal payroll.
One of the staffers who was fired during DOGE’s cuts to the Energy Department included Acting Chief of Defense Nuclear Safety James Todd, who holds the top authority for all nuclear safety matters within the agency, according to reporting from The Bulwark. In addition, several employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory – who were in charge of maintaining and minimizing radiation and potential damage from nuclear and other accidents at the site – were let go. Among those fired from the Los Alamos laboratory included an emergency preparedness manager, the site’s fire protection manager, and two representatives for the facility. After these particular job cuts were met with massive controversy and criticism from both internal and external sources, the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) reversed its decision and attempted to welcome back the fired employees. As of the writing of this article, however, there is no confirmation from either the NNSA, the employees, or DOGE as to whether or not all of the initially fired staff had been rehired successfully – leaving the nuclear safety of our country in a state of uncertainty.
The most we have heard on this NNSA re-hiring process comes from more reporting from The Bulwark, which revealed that some of the impacted individuals were considering working in more stable fields or considering early retirement.
Another confusing aspect of DOGE’s composition and establishment is figuring out who its actual Administrator is. According to a court filing from the White House, Elon Musk is in fact not the Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service, and isn’t even an employee of the service – with the court filing stating that Musk, “has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself” and that, “Mr. Musk is an employee in the White House Office. He is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization. Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.”
Although legal documents state that Musk is only a White House Advisor, the President contradicts these filings. Two days after the court filings were made publicly accessible, President Trump said at an event in Miami, “I signed an executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge” – while in the day one executive order Trump signed creating the Department, there was no specification as to who the official Administrator would be.
Another bombshell came from Musk, who is now regarded as both a Senior Advisor in the White House Office and the Administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, once again revealed on his platform, X. An email from an address using the email server for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was sent at the direction of Musk to all federal employees, asking them to respond with what they had gotten done in the past week, stating that a refusal to respond to the email would be considered a resignation from their position.
This request from DOGE [and most likely OPM to some degree] has upset many of Trump’s other appointees, including the new Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, who sent an email to all FBI staffers which read in its entirety “FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews per FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses. Thank you, Kash Patel.”
This email surprised many, as people had no reason to suspect that there was any rift between Patel and Musk. In addition to the FBI asking employees to pause responses, the Pentagon has also told their employees to “pause any response” to the email from Musk, stating in a statement on their X account that “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.” The DOD also went on to state that the Pentagon would handle all responses to Musk’s email.
When asked by media outlets including Business Insider, several agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to any requests for comment. In addition to this, representatives from both the FBI and the State Department have declined to comment on the email. This calls into question how far Musk’s authority reaches as the Administrator of DOGE, which is still legally considered a temporary organization. The last official who could have been considered the legal Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service is Ted Carstensen, who resigned on February 6. Prior to Carstensen, Mina Hsiang was the only other person who could have been considered the legal Administrator; however, she left the organization formerly known as the US Digital Service upon the inauguration of Donald Trump and JD Vance – leaving Musk as the de facto Administrator of the service until one is legally clarified and implemented through the proper channels.
Two other names have been floated among the workforce at USDS and DOGE. One of those is Amy Gleason, a former USDS official who served in the first Trump administration and is widely considered among the staffers at USDS as a liaison between legacy USDS and the DOGE Service. Another name being considered is Steve Davis, a longtime associate and friend of Musk and the president of Musk’s company, The Boring Company. A former USDS employee spoke to WIRED and revealed that even management has no clue, saying “Steve Davis has always been articulated as the leader of DOGE, but when I ask if he’s the administrator, [managers] say we don’t know.” The former employee said “They’ve said Brad Smith [a healthcare entrepreneur with ties to Davis] is serving in a chief of staff role.” – basically confirming that it is just as confusing internally as the media is portraying the situation. And despite multiple requests for comment from WIRED alone, the White House refused to respond.
Also, among the areas being impacted by DOGE, thousands of US Forest Service jobs nationwide are being actively cut – as well as jobs in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), among numerous others that were sent the email from Musk, DOGE, and OPM. As the situation continues to develop, more and more government employees are put at risk of being fired – losing the paycheck they use to provide for their families. Like any mass firing, the results and implications are undeniably devastating for the families and individuals impacted directly – but many others who do not work for the government or in the public sector could also be negatively impacted, along with the overall national security of the nation.
With job cuts at the VA, essential healthcare services to U.S. veterans could be delayed severely or even put on hold or canceled entirely. With cuts to the Forest Service, the risk of forest fires could dramatically increase not only in National Parks but also in neighboring communities filled with working-class Americans. Other agencies including the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration could also lead to pauses in funding for things such as the FAFSA, public K-12 schools & universities, and Social Security benefits for retired seniors if DOGE is not incredibly cautious in their handling of these operations. And this is just the beginning, as DOGE intends to expand the scope of their investigations into several other government agencies.
