Elon Musk quite literally brought a chainsaw to the federal government after President Donald Trump handed him the keys.
Musk was never going to play by D.C.’s rules, of course. When Trump made him the head of DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — Musk treated it like a demolition job, arguably because he had no idea how any of it works.
Bureaucrats? Fired. Agencies? Gutted. AI tools? Watching your every move.
His goal: Cut trillions in fat from the federal beast. But what we got was something closer to a series of wildfires.
Traders on markets like Kalshi and Polymarket had been watching what he’d been up to, and when he might get shown the door — now there’s a question of whether he might get the boot as Tesla CEO (Polymarket says 9%).
So, with Musk officially out at the top, it’s time to see if he passed or failed in his goals.
The Cuts
Musk’s scorched-earth strategy nuked 200,000 federal jobs and blew up agencies like USAID and the CFPB. He replaced workers with bots and ordered every department to trim at least 25% of its budget. Even sacred cows like the IRS and SSA weren’t spared. But rapid cuts meant chaos — especially in places where the work really mattered more than he realized.
The Fallout
Sure, DOGE claimed $160 billion in savings. But watchdogs say the real price tag includes $135 billion in unexpected losses — botched service rollouts, lost revenue, massive turnover, and lawsuits. Social Security call centers buckled. IRS audits stalled. The “efficiency” part? Still pending.
The AI Factor
One of Musk’s flashiest moves was deploying AI to track federal workers’ productivity. Think digital time clocks meets Orwell. Privacy advocates screamed, and morale cratered. Critics called it surveillance theater. Musk called it progress.
Public Trust Erosion
Polls showed Americans weren’t exactly cheering. Many worried Musk had too much power — and too much access to sensitive data. Transparency was murky. Oversight? Minimal. And with DOGE bypassing traditional channels, the whole thing started to look like a tech-fueled shadow government.
Ideology Over Function
Musk’s reforms weren’t just about saving money. They were about reshaping the government to fit a libertarian fantasy — small, fast, automated, and ruthless. Trouble is, real people depend on those services. And once they’re gone, rebuilding isn’t so easy.
What’s Left Behind
Now that Musk’s gone, DOGE is a mess. Agencies are understaffed. Systems are half-converted. Morale is shot. And yet, some of his ideas — especially around AI and data-driven audits — probably aren’t going away. Washington’s taking notes, even if it’s through gritted teeth.
So, Pass or Fail?
Fail. Musk swung big, but blindly. The results? Mixed at best. He did show how bloated and broken the system can be — but he broke a lot more in the process. If DOGE was an experiment, the hypothesis remains unproven. Bold? Yes. Smart? Not by any real definition.
