Even Elon Musk can’t believe his Government Attack Task Force is real
Even tech billionaires Elon Musk sounds surprised because of his high position by Donald Trump second administration: “I still can’t believe DOGE is real 🤣🤣,” he wrote Monday, referring to his fledgling government effectiveness commission. Over the past week, Musk and co-chairman Vivek Ramaswamy have begun interviewing employees for their advisory board, Washington Post reportand building coalitions with fiscal conservatives across Washington. The couple is said to have lobbied Trump to nomination Russell Vought Head of the White House budget office. They have also grown close to congressional Republicans, recruiting like-minded techies to their goal of cutting bureaucracy, and promised an upcoming podcast called “Dogecast.” “I think it will actually work,” Musk wrote of his efforts on X.
Musk and Ramaswamy have promised to cut up to $2 trillion in government spending through the advisory board, named the Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE, after a meme coin that Musk has invested heavily in . Last week, the pair penned it an editorial because Wall Street Journal outlines plans to slash regulations, cut federal employees and audit various federal contracts and grants, including appropriations to Planned Parenthood and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To achieve that goal, Parcel reports that it has begun gathering potential collaborators in Palm Beach and Washington, D.C., including investors Marc Andreessenhedge fund manager Bill Ackmanand former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Musk has also started targeting specific government programs and employees on his social media platform X: “Lots of fake jobs,” he posted last week, above the name and job title of a worker at an obscure federal development office.
Despite Musk’s bombastic rhetoric, it remains unclear how much DOGE can actually achieve. Federal law sets forth strict procedures for repealing regulations, which could further complicate Musk and Ramaswamy’s plan to invalidate “thousands” of regulations. Both also said they plan to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce by requiring it remote employee go into the office; Musk has taken a similar downsizing path at both Tesla and X. But federal employees are unlike tech workers in many respects: for one thing, roughly one quarter Federal workers belong to unions. And only 10% of them work entirely from home.
