A newly created advisory group headed by the world’s richest man has been behind many of the most radical efforts to remake the US government in the weeks since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Elon Musk, who Trump has asked to head the Department of Government Efficiency, is leading the effort to seize access to the federal payment system, dismantle an aid agency and offer millions of federal workers an ultimatum – quit or face being fired.
Known as “Doge” – seemingly a winking reference to Musk’s cryptocurrency of choice, dogecoin – the cost-cutting initiative was first announced by Trump after his victory in November.
“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, referring to a top-secret World War Two programme to develop nuclear weapons. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”
Although their work has begun and is already bringing sweeping changes, much remains unclear about how Doge functions, and what federal programmes it will target next. Here’s a look at what we know about the nascent agency.
It is not a government department
Doge was initially to be led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a financier who ran for the Republican presidential nomination, but who later backed out and is now expected to run for governor of Ohio.
Though Doge has the word “department” in its name, it is not an official government department – the type of body that has to be established through an act of Congress and typically employs thousands of staff.
Instead, Doge seems to operate as an advisory body, run by one of Trump’s closest allies and with a direct line to the White House.
In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal in November, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would “serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees”.
The pair vowed to assist the Trump transition team in recruiting Doge team members, they said, who will provide guidance to the White House on spending cuts, and compile a list of regulations they believe are outside agencies’ legal authority.
“Doge will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission,” they wrote.
In February, Musk’s designation seemed to shift when the White House told reporters he was considered an unpaid special government employee.
The role is defined by the US government as “anyone who works, or is expected to work, for the government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period”.
To some supporters of this new body, Doge’s outsider status – as well as its somewhat vague mandate – will serve as a benefit.
“They’re a little more untethered to the bureaucracy itself and to the systems that slow processes down around here,” Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told the BBC. “I think the lack of parameters is part of what will make them effective.”
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Cut, cuts and more cuts
The specifics do not seem nailed down, but the overall picture is clear – Doge’s leaders want sweeping government reform, by way of major cuts.
Musk has said his budget-cutting effort would most likely not meet its original goal of $2tn in savings – which would be around a third of annual federal government spending.
“I think we should be spending the public’s money wisely,” Musk said on his way to meet lawmakers in December.
He said Doge will slash federal regulations, oversee mass layoffs and shut down some agencies entirely.
During his failed bid for the presidential nomination, Ramaswamy proposed shutting the education department, the FBI and the IRS.
Speaking at a gala held at Mar-a-Lago, Ramaswamy thanked Trump “for making sure that Elon Musk and I are in a position to start the mass deportations of millions of unelected federal bureaucrats out of the DC bureaucracy”.
“And I don’t know if you’ve got to know Elon yet, but he doesn’t bring a chisel, he brings a chainsaw, and we’re going to be taking it to that bureaucracy,” Ramaswamy said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
So far, the group has been criticised for accessing a sensitive database of US payments, including to government employees, for pushing veteran employees to quit and for shutting down USAID – the government agency responsible for international development.
There is an ongoing legal battle over privacy and the access granted to Doge. In early February, the US Treasury agreed to temporarily limit its access.
‘Compensation is zero’
Musk has solicited employees on X, formerly Twitter, the social media platform he owns.
Doge-hopefuls have been asked to send their CVs directly to its account on X. Applicants should expect 80+ hour workweeks, according to a post from Doge, devoted to “unglamorous cost cutting”. And, according to Musk, all that work at Doge will not be rewarded with a salary.
“This will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero,” he wrote on X.
Only the “top 1% of applicants” will be reviewed by Musk and Ramaswamy, the Doge account said, though it did not specify how applicants will be ranked.
“Most of them aren’t old enough to rent a car,” former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton quipped on X.
Doge is on a deadline
Even before it’s really up and running, Doge’s expiration had been set – 4 July 2026.
“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” Trump said when announcing the new body.
Some Trump allies hope Doge will mirror the Grace Commission, a private-sector body established by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 to reform the federal bureaucracy and control spending.
During its two-year tenure, the Grace Commission submitted more than 2,500 recommendations to the White House and Congress. But most were never implemented.
Critics have questions
Musk’s bold promises have incited some incredulity among experts, who say the size and scope of his mandate borders on the impossible.
Elaine Kamark, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told the BBC that efforts to streamline government spending “can be done”.
Kamark pointed to her work managing the Clinton administration’s National Performance Review, an effort to reduce government spending in the 1990s that saved over a billion dollars and cut 250,000 people from the federal work force.
The notion of cutting one-third of the government’s spending – like Musk has pledged – is “ridiculous”, she said. Roughly two-thirds of the total budget is mandatory, and includes popular programmes like Social Security and Medicare.
“You cannot touch people’s Social Security payments or their veterans retirement payments or people’s Medicare reimbursements without getting statutory changes… they don’t have the power to enact any of those,” she said.
But some parts of Doge have attracted praise from unexpected quarters.
In December, Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said Musk “is right” about proposed cuts to the defence budget.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California said he also supported cuts to Pentagon spending.
Both have since been critical of Doge efforts. Khanna accused Musk on CNBC of violating the Constitution by acting “unilaterally” on cuts.
Sanders said on Twitter in February: “An unelected billionaire cannot simply shut down federal agencies authorized by Congress at will.”
Democratic congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida became the first in his party to join the House Doge caucus, a congressional caucus that is tasked with reducing government spending, but does not report directly to the Doge advisory board.
“Reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” he said in a December statement.
