The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE in shorthand, is a new department that President-elect Donald Trump seeks to establish. It would be responsible for reforming the effectiveness of the federal government and seeking to cut out superfluous expenses. The DOGE will be co-led by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy starting November 12, 2024. This is another step in the ongoing Trump pledge to cut through bureaucratic red tape in government-a promise he has made since he took office.
Goals of DOGE
The key goals of the Department of Government Efficiency include:
- Destroying bureaucracy: Removing all those bureaucratic hindrances coming in the way of good governance and making the federal operations leaner and responsive.
- Cut regulations: The DOGE wants to cut down those excessive regulations that bring in multi-dimensional complexity in the federal operations and make the environment business-friendly.
- Cutting wasteful Expenditures: Probably one of the most ambitious targets in finding and cutting out wasteful spending within the federal budget, at which place Musk has suggested a thorough review could find up to $2 trillion in potential savings.
- Restructuring federal agencies: Changes will be effected within the different federal agencies with the aim of bringing up accountability and efficiency, which may lead to as many as a sledge in the size of the federal workforce.
Leadership structure
Unlike many other parts of the federal government, DOGE will not be a formal agency within the bureaucracy. Instead, it will be a semi-independent body that advises and guides the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. It’s setup allows Musk and Ramaswamy to continue their lives in the private sector and not require Senate confirmation into their positions.
With Musk, an avid leader in technology and innovation with companies like Tesla and SpaceX, he is expected to apply his entrepreneurship skills in leading wide reforms. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who founded a biotech firm and has also run for president, brings the topic with an economically efficient regulatory reform perspective.
Background and development
The idea of the DOGE seems to have cropped up when Trump and Musk were talking on Musk’s media outlet. Back in August 2024, they had this two-hour session in which Musk suggested the setting up of a commission that would probe into wastes by the government. Trump was pretty agreeable, telling him he’d like somebody as strong and smart as Musk to run such a commission.
By September 2024, during a speech for the Economic Club of New York, Trump had converted this into an official proposal with notice of a government efficiency commission so as to comprehensively audit the federal operations. This provided the ground for what would be later known as DOGE.
Timeline and expectations
He is rather ambitious in setting a timeline for the DOGE mission: to make sure significant reform will be affected by July 4th, 2026. The date holds great importance because it signifies the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a declaration of independence from bad and ineffective governance.
The Department is expected to take up big-ticket reforms that reflect this entrepreneurial spirit of the government. This would include increasing transparency through publicly recording spending by the government and even inviting citizens’ inputs on decisions regarding expenditure.
Potential challenges
While the creation of DOGE was popular with Trump’s base, some potential conflicts of interest arise. Musk and Ramaswamy are heads of companies with big government contracts that could present conflicts in their new roles to ensure unbiased oversight of government efficiency.
Critics have identified that the nature of the efficiency audits is already undertaken by other non-partisan oversight agencies like the Government Accountability Office. Consequently, how DOGE will differ from those or add something that the existing frameworks cannot provide remains needed.
What DOGE has done
In the past 100 days of Trump’s presidency, DOGE led by Elon Musk has gone on to request access to the SSA database and even laid off workers form the said organizations which has led to longer waiting times for call inquiries due to being short-staffed. When asked in an interview in April, Musk called DOGE, “A very big success.” But there have been lots of disruptions, many organizations are calling out DOGE over privacy concerns ever since it had cried out for access to sensitive user data.
Elon Musk has also come under heavy fire for discrepancies in DOGE’s actual savings leading to contentious public exchanges and a defensive stance regarding the departments accomplishments. While there have been actual savings and cost cutting form the cooperation it’s effectiveness and methods towards achieving it have been questionable.
