Those opposing the DOGE effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of federal tax dollars can’t claim there is no waste, fraud, and abuse so they instead squeal that Elon Musk is somehow the ‘unelected president’. That he is acting without authority. That we are in a constitutional crisis. Even, that Musk is a Nazi that has used his financial resources to infiltrate the US government.
So, what’s really going on? Who does Musk work for and is he trying to accomplish anything any different than what other presidents tried to do?
What is DOGE?
DOGE is a temporary office that sits within the existing US Digital Services Agency that was created under President Obama. Currently, the DOGE status is set to expire on July 4, 2026. DOGE staffers are fully vetted and security checked government employees.
Lawsuits against Musk and DOGE are being filed everywhere. As a part of a response to one lawsuit, DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason said of Elon Musk, “, 'I do not report to him, and he does not report to me. To my knowledge, he is a Senior Advisor to the White House.”
DOGE does not make cuts to budgets or staff on its own. DOGE has no authority to make cuts. They review and present information. Gleason made clear in her filings that each agency head is responsible for creating their own DOGE teams to find and eliminate overspending.
In a separate court filing, another White House official said that Musk, "has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself."
Musk is what’s called a “Special Government Employee (SGE)”. This status has been around since 1962 as a way to enable the government to utilize outside specialized expertise on a temporary basis. According the Department of Justice, a special government employee can be paid or unpaid. There is a whole section of federal regulation related to SGEs and Musk is compliant with all processes according to the White House.
Is DOGE doing anything new?
Democrat critics and their mainstream media partners complain as though programs like DOGE are somehow unusual. In fact, DOGE-like efforts have gone on for some time with varying degrees of success. President Obama said himself in 2011, “Everyone knows that getting rid of the deficit will require some tough decisions, and that includes cutting back on billions of dollars in programs that a lot of people care about.”
In fact, Obama named Biden the head of his ‘DOGE’ effort saying Biden “will lead a new effort to hunt down misspent tax dollars in every agency and department of this government.”
Former President Biden said things then that sound very familiar to today’s ear, “There's a new standard by which the government is going to function at this point on. The American people are entitled to transparency. By that I mean they're entitled to be able to figure out where their dollars are going and they're entitled to accountability to make sure that we're using the dollars for what we said it was for.
Biden spoke of using, “new sophisticated methods” and “a relentless focus on making this a priority”. “We're holding ourselves accountable and we're deeply committed and focused on making government function better,” said Biden.
That language sounds a lot like what Trump and Musk are saying now. Almost exactly like it, as a matter of fact.