Elon Musk's brief and tumultuous foray into reshaping the US federal government has left a legacy of disruption, exaggerated savings claims, and legal challenges, a detailed analysis reveals. The world's richest person, who spent over $250m supporting Donald Trump's 2024 re-election campaign, was tasked with leading a sweeping "efficiency" drive despite having no prior government experience.
A Collision Course with Reality
Appointed to oversee the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" (Doge), Musk initially declared the initiative could identify at least $2tn in potential savings for the federal budget. This bold claim was made at a campaign rally in New York just a week before Trump's return to office in January 2025. However, the ambitious plans quickly met the complex reality of governing.
Following the administration's start, tens of thousands of federal workers were fired, triggering widespread agency disarray and a myriad of legal disputes. Musk himself abruptly exited the role after just four months, and by mid-2025, reports indicated Doge had been dissolved. The billionaire has since stated he would not undertake such a task again.
'Moving Fast and Breaking Things' in Government
Experts have lambasted the approach. Elaine Kamarck, a former White House official who managed the National Performance Review under President Clinton, told The Guardian the project was "complete bullshit from the beginning." She criticised the Silicon Valley mindset applied to public administration.
"This business of coming in and moving fast and breaking things which they like to do in Silicon Valley just doesn't work in the government," Kamarck stated. She contrasted Doge's chaotic methods with her own experience of cutting 420,000 government jobs over seven years with a strategic plan aligned to agency missions.
By March 2025, Musk had already scaled back his savings projection to $1tn. As of December, Doge's claimed savings stand at $214bn, a figure reports describe as being rife with errors, inaccuracies, and exaggerations. The disruption was significant: the Brookings Institution recorded 26,511 instances where the administration fired workers only to rehire them later.
Lasting Impact and Legal Battles
The initiative's methods raised serious concerns about transparency and data security. Chuck Borges, former chief data officer at the Social Security Administration (SSA), resigned and filed a whistleblower complaint in August 2025. He alleged that Doge's actions left sensitive public social security data exposed in an insecure cloud environment, contravening agency policy and best practices.
Doge operated with "minimal transparency but maximal authority," according to Donald K Sherman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew). His organisation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against Doge in February 2025, alleging failures to comply with recordkeeping and transparency laws. Many of these legal challenges are ongoing.
Critics argue the agency was less about genuine efficiency and more an ideological tool. Philip G Joyce, a public policy professor, noted that the longstanding Government Accountability Office (GAO) had already logged $1.45tn in savings since 2002. He suggested Doge was a mechanism to cut government functions ideologically opposed by the Trump administration without congressional approval.
While the White House, approached for comment, stated a commitment to cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse," the experiment in applying Silicon Valley disruption to the heart of Washington appears to have concluded with more chaos than concrete achievement.
