Elon Musk’s DOGE ‘doesn’t exist,’ says Trump admin

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, appears to have dissolved operations eight months before its contract was set to expire, marking the end of a contentious campaign to slash funding across several U.S. federal agencies.

Earlier this month, Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor told Reuters that DOGE “doesn’t exist,” and added that it was no longer a “centralized entity.”

The cost-cutting body created by executive order in January, the day U.S. President Donald Trump took office, made sweeping federal budget cuts during the early months of the president’s second term, claiming to have slashed tens of billions of dollars in government spending.

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Without confirming if DOGE still exists, even after Musk and Trump’s public feud and Musk stepping away from his role in May, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston wrote in an email to Reuters this week that “President Trump was given a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government, and he continues to actively deliver on that commitment.”

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Musk, musing about his and DOGE’s incongruous role in the U.S. government, said at the time of his departure, “It is funny that we’ve got DOGE.”

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“Doesn’t the absurdity of that seem, like, like, are we in a simulation here or what’s going on? But, like, it was a meme coin at one point,” he said, laughing. “How did we get here?”

Since then, according to Reuters, the federal government’s human resources office has taken over many of DOGE’s responsibilities.

In February, Musk told reporters that DOGE was committed to providing transparent updates on its operations, but outside financial experts were unable to verify its claims of savings because it did not maintain a detailed public record of its work.

Today, its website claims the department has achieved $214 billion in savings, which it says translates to $ 1,329 per taxpayer. The site even provides a “Wall of Receipts” that purportedly displays terminated contracts.

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Politico reported in June that DOGE staffers had “packed up their clothes and bedding” at the department’s headquarters, where they had been staying since February, after ruptures between Musk and Trump stoked fears that their roles in cutting government programs might be criminal.

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According to the outlet, news of Musk’s departure also sparked concern among DOGE leaders, with some reportedly assuring employees that the Tesla founder would protect them. In contrast, others advised staff to lawyer up.

View image in full screen FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump, right, speaks during a news conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025, in Washington. AP Photo / Evan Vucci, File

By May, DOGE had cut more than 200,000 federal jobs, and approximately 75,000 people had accepted severance packages, the Guardian reported.

Senior DOGE staff began moving into other government jobs before Musk stepped down. In March, Amy Gleason, DOGE acting administrator, became an adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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Zachary Terrell, another senior member of the team, is now chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Rachel Riley, who pushed for cuts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is now chief of the Office of Naval Research, according to Reuters.

In his first 100 days in office, Trump’s administration laid off 121,000 federal employees, eviscerated the Department of Education and the Department for International Development (USAID), and made significant cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

DOGE had set a target to reduce federal spending by $1 trillion, though Musk estimated he had cut $160 billion at the time of his departure.