Elon Musk's 'DOGE' officially shut down, sources say

Despite having eight months left as part of the official roster of federal government agencies, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been disbanded.

In a report from Reuters, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor said in early November, they were told such an agency did not exist.

Musk's project, established shortly after President Donald Trump took office on January 20, 2025, immediately made waves. There was a dramatic number of staff cuts in those early months, most of which are hard to track.

It involved thousands of workers from various Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies—including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

As cuts were made, sometimes the agencies would rehire workers; the entire loss of staff is difficult to calculate. Moreover, the savings to taxpayers were largely generated by withholding grants and funding money allocated by Congress, much of which was challenged in federal courts.

Again, the results of those court challenges are mixed. However, most of the staff firings were confirmed as legal by the Supreme Court.

As Reuters noted: “DOGE claimed to have slashed tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, but it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify that because the unit did not provide detailed public accounting of its work.”

Musk officially left the agency in May, and its status was unclear. Now the White House confirms the agency, though officially on the books, stopped operating—however, staff working with the group did transfer elsewhere within the federal government.

As Reuters noted, Trump officially declared that DOGE would exist through July 2025. However, its actions up to or after that point seem limited.

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