Late last year, Elon Musk vowed to cut $2 trillion from the government’s budget with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
It didn’t take long for that number to drop to $1 trillion, indicating little thought had gone into the original calculation.
And judging by the latest news, DOGE is woefully behind even that target. As the New York Times reports, Musk told Donald Trump this week that DOGE anticipated “savings in '26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion,” referring to the fiscal year that runs from October 2025 to the end of September 2026. (It’s even unclear if Musk meant that the so-called department had saved $150 billion so far, or if that was how much he’s now predicting it would save in total.)
His efforts were only a dismal failure if the original intention was to improve government functioning whilst lowering costs.
On the other hand, if it was to gut the government and funnel money to Musk and co, then it’s been a roaring success.
The first agencies he targeted were all the ones investigating his companies or limiting his companies: DoD was trying to limit exposure through SpaceX due to Musk’s multiple conversations with Putin; the NLRB was investigating both SpaceX and Tesla; the EEOC was suing Tesla; DoT was investigating Tesla over both Smart Summoning and “Full-Self Driving” accidents; the FAA called for both ‘radical reform’ and Musk’s firing at SpaceX after repeated launch violations; the FEC was investigating him for repeated elections violations; DoJ had an open lawsuit over SpaceX hiring practices (now dismissed, and anti-Tesla actions are now “domestic terrorism”); the SEC had an open complaint of his Xitter takeover; the FDA was limiting his ability to pay around with NeuraLink; the EPA has repeatedly fined bitch SpaceX and Tesla; he’s been pressuring NASA to retire the ISS and to use SpaceX for Mars exploration instead of their own craft; and the CFPB had limited his plans for a Xitter-based electronic payment system.
While they haven’t always received a lot of press coverage, he’s sent his goons after every single one of those agencies.
I think gutting the government and sowing chaos is part of his goal (he’s fully bought into Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things” mindset), but he went after specific agencies pretty quickly.