LOOKING BACK ON MUSK AND DOGE. Elon Musk officially said goodbye to DOGE and government service in an Oval Office session with President Donald Trump and reporters on Friday afternoon. But after one of the most talked-about initiatives in executive branch history, there wasn’t that much to talk about.
Even though Musk’s limited-by-law 130 days as a special government employee have come to an end, both he and the president vowed that he would not fully leave the DOGE effort. “Many of the DOGE people are staying behind, so they’re not leaving,” Trump said. “And Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think.”
“This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said. “The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only grow stronger. I’d liken it to sort of Buddhism. It’s like a way of life, so it is permeating throughout the government. And I’m confident that over time we will see a trillion dollars of savings.”
In evaluating DOGE’s work, it’s useful to keep two things in mind. One, it’s good to try to cut government waste. And two, Musk overpromised and underdelivered.
The government should not be spending money on stupid things. It should not be mired in fraud. It should not use outdated, expensive technology when up-to-date, less expensive technology is available. DOGE identified and stopped a lot of those things. It was not the first group of government reformers to tackle the problem, but what it did was worthwhile.
On the other hand, Musk promised huge savings to taxpayers that have not, and probably won’t, materialize. First, he talked about $2 trillion in savings. Then, $1 trillion. Now, the DOGE website lists $175 billion in savings. Now, $175 billion is not nothing, and it is a good thing to prevent the government from throwing $175 billion in taxpayer dollars away. On the other hand, it is a lot less than Musk thought he could achieve in a relatively short period of time.
Why did Musk, in other areas of life a big overachiever, underachieve in this case? Because there are powerful forces in Washington that want to strangle any reform. Despite polls showing broad public support for cutting wasteful government spending, there is always — perhaps for partisan reasons, perhaps for selfish reasons, perhaps for other reasons — someone who wants to kill any effort to make government work more efficiently. On the other hand, Musk also contributed to DOGE’s problems. This is from the March 11 newsletter:
1) Democrats and their allies in the media want Musk to fail because they want President Trump to fail. 2) A large part of the federal bureaucracy wants Musk and Trump to fail because it has an interest in an ever-expanding and costly bureaucracy. 3) With a tech-guy, move-fast-fail-then-fix approach to problem-solving, the DOGE ethos is appropriate for some federal government functions but not for others. And 4) Elon Musk can’t stop talking.
Musk paid a high price for his effort to make the government work better. “He had to go through the slings and the arrows,” Trump said Friday, in a rare moment of understatement. Democratic politicians, activists, lawfare warriors, and their allies in the media became consumed with Musk hatred. The largest single source of his wealth, Tesla, found itself under attack. Musk, who had once been a hero on the left for his innovations in electric cars, became a villain.
On the very morning of Friday’s news conference with Trump, the New York Times published a long story headlined, “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama; As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” The paper reported that Musk’s “drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall.”
In the Oval Office Friday, the first question from the press was about the Times article. Musk blew it off by citing the Times‘s repeated promotion of false allegations during the Russia affair of Trump’s first term. “Let’s move on,” he said. But the message was clear: The longer Musk stayed involved in government, the more slings and arrows would fly. And at the same time, Musk’s other interests — not just Tesla but SpaceX and the incredible work he is doing in that field — would suffer from his absence.
In the end, Musk leaves behind a continuing effort to roll the rock of government reform up the hill. He’ll return to his business and hopefully continue to make progress in the Starship program. He’ll focus on efforts that suit his admittedly unorthodox style better than government reform. And DOGE, if it continues, will continue to make relatively small but still valuable reductions in government spending.