DOGE: The Federal Purge

The Department of Government Efficiency was not a government department in the legal sense — it was an advisory body led by Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person. Musk held the title of "Special Government Employee" (SGE), a status that legally limited his official role to 130 days, ending in late May 2025. In that time, he and a team of young, often inexperienced staff — some sleeping on cots at agency headquarters — swept through the federal government accessing computer systems, firing thousands of employees, dismantling agencies, and cancelling contracts and leases at an extraordinary pace.

DOGE gained access to at least 15 federal agencies within its first three weeks, including the Treasury Department's payment systems, the IRS, the Department of Education, FEMA, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Social Security Administration, USAID, the Voice of America, and others. In most cases, DOGE's authority to access these systems — and the data within them — was legally contested.

Trump repeatedly backed Musk: "Elon is doing a great job, he's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste." House Speaker Mike Johnson said DOGE was doing "what Congress has been unable to do." He provided no specific examples of the fraud allegedly uncovered.

The main reason spending didn't fall: most federal spending is mandatory entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) which operate on "policy autopilot" and cannot be cut by executive action. DOGE focused on discretionary spending and workforce, which is a small fraction of the federal budget.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization, described 2025 as creating "unprecedented challenges for the federal government." In 2025, the administration purged more than 300,000 employees, began politicizing the nonpartisan civil service, and sought retribution against perceived enemies. The 77,000 federal workers who accepted buyout offers represented about 3.2% of the federal workforce — below DOGE's 5–10% target.

The "move fast and break things" approach had real consequences: a GAO analysis found that layoffs in the Education Department's civil rights division may have cost $38 million, with employees paid months after termination. Musk himself later admitted his DOGE effort was only "somewhat successful" and said he would not do it again.