Elon Musk and DOGE: What You Need to Know About the Department of Government Efficiency

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new U.S. government initiative aimed at lowering the federal budget deficit.

The initiative, called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and with an acronym identical to the ticker of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, will “eliminate excessive regulation, reduce wasteful spending and restructure federal agencies,” according to the president-elect Donald. Trump.

However, some details about the project remain unclear. Here’s everything we know so far about DOGE.

What is DOGE?

DOGE is an upcoming US government initiative that Elon Musk first tweeted about in August.

While the project initially appeared to be a joke – created as a joke, and unsurprisingly driving up the price of Dogecoin whenever it was mentioned by Musk – Trump threw his support behind DOGE’s attempt to cut government spending, suggesting that the once fictional department actually a real life US government affiliated entity.

“Together, [Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy] will pave the way for my administration to dismantle the government bureaucracy, eliminate excess regulations, reduce wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies – essential to the ‘Save America’ movement,” Trump said. said in a statement.

The project will be active until “no later than July 4, 2026,” Trump said; which is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Notably, DOGE is not an official U.S. government department in the traditional sense of the word, as only Congress – and not the President – ​​can authorize the creation of new federal government departments. according to to the website of the United States Congress.

Rather, Musk’s meme-linked brainchild will exist “outside” the government system, Trump said. That means DOGE will likely receive no government funding. It also means that the project’s ability to directly control the budgets of US government agencies will be minimal, although DOGE’s directives could be implemented by Trump’s supporters in Congress.

Who will lead DOGE?

Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will take charge of the Department of Government Efficiency. Neither manager will receive compensation for their work, Twitter said after that Musk published.

Musk is, of course, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and the owner of Twitter (aka X). Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur and onetime Republican presidential hopeful who dropped out of the race during the primaries and threw his support behind Trump.

The initiative will also be staffed for the time being by a number of “small government revolutionaries with super-high IQs who are willing to work 80+ hours a week on unglamorous cost savings,” the department official said. after. It is not yet known how many employees will be hired to staff the project, but the gigs will be unpaid, Elon Musk tweeted.

Billionaire Marc Andreessen of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has been recruited to act as DOGE’s “key talent acquisition networker,” the WashingtonPost reported, citing an anonymous source.

The initiative’s billionaire co-leaders have also worked with several Silicon Valley executives to address “technical challenges in collecting data on federal employees and programs” — a major problem the initiative aims to solve, according to the same report. These advisers include Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, the newspaper said, citing several people familiar with the matter.

Neither Ramaswamy nor Musk have commented on this Decode request for comment.

What is DOGE actually going to do?

DOGE’s mandate is to streamline the U.S. government by issuing reports that provide advice and guidance on reducing government regulations and spending, Trump said.

“Your money is being wasted, and the government’s Department of Efficiency is going to fix that. We are going to take the government out of your pockets,” Musk said in October at a rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The quasi-department plans to accomplish that task by pushing its cost-cutting proposals through Congress. Musk and Ramaswamy could also present their ideas directly to Trump, who has the power to bypass Congress and issue executive orders that would call for the implementation of DOGE guidelines.

While critics have expressed doubts about the extent to which DOGE will be able to effect change, it has become increasingly likely that its austerity measures will have at least some effect in Congress.

In late November, GOP members of Congress formed the Congressional Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus, which will defend the DOGE guidelines on Capitol Hill.

The ranks of House and Senate lawmakers are still growing, and in early December even the first Democratic member, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), appointed. according to Unpleasant The hill. The formation of the Caucus is a sign that Musk and Ramaswamy’s efforts to rally lawmakers behind their extragovernmental organization are paying off.

In November, Musk and Ramaswamy reportedly traveled to Washington DC and Mar-a-Lago, where they interviewed “seasoned Washington operators, legal specialists and top technology leaders” to iron out their plans for the agency, according to the WashingtonPostwhich one cited five people familiar with the matter.

However, the quasi-department’s billionaire leaders have made varying statements about the extent to which U.S. federal government spending should be cut.

Musk previously proposed cutting federal spending by $2 million – a third of the US federal government’s entire budget. Meanwhile, Ramaswamy has said he wants to cut as much as 75% of the U.S. federal workforce, although the budget implications of such a cut are unclear.

However, Musk has since walked back his grand claims, saying in January that cutting the federal government by $2 trillion was actually unlikely. He called it a “best-case scenario” in a video interview on X, but instead said there is a “good chance” of finding $1 trillion in cuts.

Despite these differences, DOGE leaders appear to be in agreement on phasing out scores from employees of the federal government and several U.S. agencies, such as the Department of Education and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to reduce costs, according to recent public comments from Ramaswamy and Musk.

“The size of the [government funds] waste goes beyond what the public could ever imagine,” Musk said tweetedreferring to US federal government spending, which refilled $6 trillion by 2023.

The WashingtonPost reported that Musk and Ramaswamy also plan to launch a podcast called the “DOGEcast,” which will provide weekly updates on their efforts.

Why is it called DOGE?

The faux department’s initialism, DOGE, appears to be a cheeky reference to the ticker for Dogecoin (DOGE), a high-market-cap meme coin beloved by Elon Musk. That link was reinforced by an official T-shirt sold by Trump featuring President-elect Musk and a Shiba Inu dog.

The meme, famous for its Shiba Inu mascot, was invented in 2013 by a pair of software engineers. Musk has said he owns a “bunch” of Dogecoin, and he has routinely tweeted and spoken about the coin in recent years. He even referred to himself as the “Dogefather” in 2021 and mentioned the coin while hosting Saturday evening live.

Dogecoin’s value rose during Musk’s support of Trump on the campaign trail, then skyrocketed after Trump’s victory and amid DOGE’s official leadership announcement. The coin recently reached a three-year high price and has also caused other notable meme coins to rise in value.

What is the latest news about DOGE?

Musk and Ramaswamy went to Capitol Hill on December 5 to discuss a concrete overview of DOGE’s goals with a group of lawmakers.

During the private meeting, the mostly Republican senators discussed the business leaders’ 60-page budget cut proposal for the federal government. Fox News reported. The meeting was moderated by Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), chair of the newly created US Senate DOGE Caucus.

During the session, Musk told lawmakers that he and Ramaswamy would maintain a “naughty and nice” list of politicians who support the billionaires’ austerity proposals and those who don’t. Associated press reportedciting lawmakers who attended the meeting.

In January, House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to create a task force of independent experts to work with the DOGE, further legitimizing the billionaires’ extragovernmental initiative. Johnson has since re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on November 17, 2024 and last updated with new details on January 11, 2025.