11 questions about what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk can do

President-elect Donald Trump wants to dismantle the federal bureaucracy and even eliminate at least one federal department. To that end, he is creating a new agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

If the name sounds like a meme, that’s because it is a meme. DOGE is the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, who came up with the acronym as a nod to the mascot of his obsessive digital currency, Dogecoin.

The plan is ambitious: $2 trillion in cuts to government spending. The overall goal of streamlining government and making it more efficient has confounded successive presidents, both Democratic and Republican, and the plan led by Musk is likely to face political opposition, just as previous efforts to cut the deficit have.

The efficiency effort will be led by two people: Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

1. What is the Department of Government Efficiency?

Let's start with what it is not. It's not a department, because departments are permanent and can only be created or dissolved by Congress. Instead, Trump said the organization would operate outside of the government and be disbanded in July 2026.

2. How will it work?

It’s unclear. One possible mechanism is through the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law that allows the president to seek advice from a committee of public and private sector players. Trump could create such a committee through an executive order, in which case it would likely become one of about 1,000 federal advisory committees — which together cost $399 million last year.

3. Is this unethical?

Vivek RamaswamyPhotographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg

Having Musk and Ramaswamy on federal advisory committees would make them so-called special government employees. These positions can be unpaid and allow individuals to work for a federal agency or the White House for up to 130 days. An important consideration for Musk and Ramaswamy, a former biotech executive: The positions do not require the individuals to publicly disclose or divest their assets.

Still, Musk and Ramaswamy will be subject to federal ethics laws that require them to recuse themselves from discussions and decisions that affect them personally. That could complicate matters for Musk, whose SpaceX alone has more than $15 billion in federal contracts. Musk’s companies have also been targeted by at least 20 federal regulators, according to an investigation conducted by The New York Times.

4. What is the goal of DOGE?

Trump said the group would "provide advice and guidance from outside government and will work with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to drive massive structural reforms and create an unprecedented approach to entrepreneurship in government." He called the plan the "Manhattan Project" of our time.

5. How much spending does DOGE want to cut?

Musk set a goal of $2 trillion in spending cuts, but it was unclear whether that represented annual savings or savings over a 10-year budget window. Trump used an annual figure in his statement, suggesting the former: "We will eliminate the massive waste and fraud that exists in our $6.5 trillion annual government spending."

6. Why hasn’t this been done before?

It did — though it never did. Washington is awash with spending cuts that were never implemented. In 2010, the Simpson-Bowles Commission proposed $4 trillion in cuts over about a decade by pushing back the Social Security retirement age, capping health care costs, and eliminating tax breaks. Congress never acted. Then a new congressional committee, known as a supercommittee, tried to find a “grand bargain” for President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans in 2011. It failed. Republicans tried to use multiple government shutdowns and a debt-ceiling standoff to force a budget reckoning, but ended up with only short-term solutions. Trump himself promised in 2016 that he would balance the budget “fairly quickly,” but when he left office in 2021, the U.S. debt was at record levels.

7. Why is it so difficult?

Drastically reducing the deficit would require a degree of austerity not seen since World War II, likely including deep cuts to popular programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits.

8. What’s on the cutting board?

U.S. Department of Education. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg

Trump has pledged to close the Education Department and return control of policy and funding to the states. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who spoke with Musk shortly after the election, said Musk was particularly interested in finding and eliminating Medicare fraud and expanding the sale of public lands.

9. What about waste, fraud and abuse?

Trump said the commission would target “massive waste and fraud.” But cutting “waste, fraud and abuse” has long been a mantra for conservative politicians, and efforts to achieve it have been mixed. The Government Accountability Office estimates that federal agencies lose between $233 billion and $521 billion a year to fraud. The biggest culprit was the coronavirus spending package signed into law by Trump in 2020; a 2023 Associated Press review found that 10% of the $4.2 trillion in pandemic relief funds was misused. Waste is a more subjective issue. Since 2011, the GAO has submitted 14 reports to Congress with 2018 recommendations aimed at reducing or eliminating duplicative programs or lowering federal government costs. Congress adopted about two-thirds of them, saving about $667.5 billion.

10. How can the public learn about DOGE’s proposal?

Federal law requires advisory committee meetings to be public, and Musk himself promised that all actions would be "posted online for maximum transparency." He also hinted that there might be some game-like public comments. "We're also going to have leaderboards of the craziest misuse of taxpayer money. It's both very tragic and very entertaining," he said.

11. Can Trump do this without Congress?

Trump does not need congressional approval for Musk's position, but Congress holds spending power under the Constitution and any cuts must be approved by Congress. However, Trump thinks he has found a way around it. He plans to challenge a key provision of a 1974 law that forms the basis of the modern federal budget process. The provision, called the Budget Control Act, states that the president must spend appropriations unless Congress decides to revoke it. "Restoring the Budget Control Act will give us a critical tool to eliminate the deep state, drain the swamp, and starve the warmongers," Trump said last year. "With the Budget Control Act, we can easily cut off funding."