President Donald Trump’s Office of Government Efficiency is disbanding with eight months remaining in his term, ending a program launched with much fanfare as a symbol of his pledge to shrink the size of government, but with few measurable savings, critics say.
“That doesn’t exist,” Office of Personnel Management Secretary Scott Cooper told Reuters earlier this month when asked about the DOGE situation.
In the Trump administration’s first public comments on the termination of DOGE, Kupol added that it is no longer a “centralized organization.”
The agency, created in January, made dramatic inroads across Washington during the early months of President Trump’s second term to rapidly downsize federal agencies, slashing budgets and redirecting operations to Trump’s priorities. OPM, the federal government’s human resources office, then took over many of DOGE’s functions, according to Kupol and documents reviewed by Reuters.
At least two prominent DOGE officials are currently involved in the National Design Studio, a new organization created by an executive order signed by President Trump in August. The agency is headed by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who was directed by President Trump to beautify government websites.
Gebbia is part of billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE team, and Edward Coristine, a DOGE employee nicknamed “Big Balls,” encouraged followers of his X account to apply to join.
DOGE’s demise stands in stark contrast to months of government-wide efforts to draw attention to DOGE, with Trump, his advisers, and Cabinet members posting about it on social media. Musk, who originally led DOGE, regularly touted his efforts on the X Platform, at one point brandishing a chainsaw to promote efforts to cut government jobs.
“This is a chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, in February, holding the tool above his head.
DOGE claimed it had cut spending by tens of billions of dollars, but it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify that because the department had not filed detailed public accounts of its operations.
“President Trump has a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government, and we continue to aggressively implement that commitment,” White House press secretary Liz Houston said in an email to Reuters.
Trump officials are hinting at the end of DOGE
Even after Musk and Trump publicly feuded in May, Trump administration officials have not publicly said DOGE no longer exists. Musk has since left Washington.
Despite the US president signing an executive order at the beginning of his term that would keep DOGE in place until July 2026, Trump and his team have publicly hinted at its demise since this summer.
President Trump often speaks about DOGE in the past tense in his statements to reporters. In addition to her role at DOGE, Amy Gleason, the acting DOGE secretary with a background in medical technology, officially became an advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy in March, according to court filings. Her public statements have focused primarily on the role of HHS.
Meanwhile, Republican-led states such as Idaho and Florida have created local organizations similar to DOGE.
Kupol said another feature of DOGE, the government-wide hiring freeze, has also ended.
On his first day in office, President Trump barred federal agencies from hiring new employees, except for positions his team deemed necessary to enforce immigration law and protect public safety. He then said DOGE representatives must approve other exceptions, adding that agencies should hire “no more than one for every four departing employees.”
“There are no longer any targets for reductions,” Koupol said.
Former DOGE employee takes on new position
DOGE employees also assume other roles within the administration. The most prominent is Mr. Gebbia, whom Mr. Trump tasked with improving the “visual presentation” of government websites.
So far, his design studio has launched a website recruiting law enforcement officers to patrol Washington, D.C., and promote the president’s drug pricing program. Gebbia declined an interview with Reuters through a spokesperson.
Zachary Terrell, a member of the DOGE team that was given access to the government’s health care system early in President Trump’s second term, is currently the chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services. Rachel Riley, who had the same access according to court filings, is now director of the Office of Naval Research, according to the Office of Naval Research’s website.
Jeremy Lewin, who helped Musk and the Trump administration dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, now oversees foreign aid at the State Department, according to the agency’s website.
Shortly after Trump’s election, Musk said he was on a mission to “remove” mountains of government regulation. In addition to eliminating federal jobs, he has identified two key tenets of DOGE: deregulating and reshaping government with AI.
The administration is still working on reducing regulations. According to his LinkedIn profile, the White House Budget Office tasked Scott Langmack, former DOGE representative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with creating a custom AI application to scrutinize U.S. regulations and decide which ones to remove.
Meanwhile, Musk has made another appearance in Washington. This week he attended a White House dinner for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
