What’s next for DOGE after Elon Musk’s departure? ‘Only just begun’
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bid farewell to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Wednesday night X post, ending his tenure as the face of the agency as it shifts to a new phase in President Donald Trump‘s second term.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk said on X. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Musk has been the public face of DOGE since Trump signed an executive order establishing the office on Jan. 20. DOGE has since ripped through federal government agencies in a quest to identify and end government overspending, corruption and fraud.
After Musk’s departure, a senior White House official told Fox News Digital that DOGE will operate as it has always operated and that the agency is “part of the DNA of this federal government.”
The official added that DOGE now operates in “nearly every federal government agency department” with the “sole job” of cutting waste, fraud and abuse with the goal of efficiency.
“The DOGE employees at their respective agency or department will be reporting to and executing the agenda of the president through the leadership of each agency or department head,” the official said.
In a post on X, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said, “The work DOGE has done to eliminate government waste and corruption — the rot embedded deep within Washington — is among the most valuable services ever rendered to government. And the work has only just begun.”
While Musk has been the public face of DOGE for months, he was not an employee of the United States DOGE Service and did not report to the acting DOGE administrator, Amy Gleason, according to a court filing in March that shed additional light on the internal workings of the office.
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Gleason, who has been described by her peers as a “world-class talent,” previously worked for the United States Digital Service, which was founded in 2014 by former President Barack Obama as a technology office within the Executive Office of the President.
DOGE is a temporary cross-departmental organization that was established to slim down and streamline the federal government. The group itself will be dissolved on July 4, 2026, according to Trump’s executive order.
Musk’s tenure with DOGE resulted in an estimated $175 billion in savings through a combination of asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment deletion and other cost-cutting measures, according to the agency’s website, which was last updated on May 26.
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The savings amount to $1,086.96 per taxpayer, according to the website.
Amid Musk’s work with DOGE, Democrats and activists have staged protests against the tech billionaire and his companies, including working to tank Tesla stocks.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Elizabeth Pritchard contributed to this report.
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