Big Balls Was Just the Beginning
DOGE dominated the news this year as Elon Musk’s operatives shook up several US government agencies. It’s far from over.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, has gone through several iterations, leading periodically to claims—most recently from the director of the Office of Personnel Management—that the group doesn’t exist, or has vanished altogether.
But DOGE isn’t dead. Many of its original members are in full-time roles at various government agencies, and the new National Design Studio (NDS) is headed by Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, a close ally of Musk’s.
Even if DOGE doesn’t survive another year, or until the US semiquincentennial—its original expiration date, per the executive order establishing it—the organization’s larger project will continue. DOGE from its inception was used for two things, both of which have continued apace: the destruction of the administrative state and the wholesale consolidation of data in service of concentrating power in the executive branch. It is a pattern that experts say could spill over beyond the Trump administration.
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