In January 2025, President Trump, through Elon Musk, established the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), a body aimed at reducing government waste and putting taxes to better use within six months. Now, in May 2025, that tenure has ended, and President Trump expresses his deep gratitude for the work Musk has done with D.O.G.E.
In a video on X, the President posted about the journey of D.O.G.E. so far with the caption “Thank you, Elon.” The Department of Government Efficiency was one of the more unconventional yet headline-grabbing initiatives launched during Trump’s second term.
Created through an executive directive, D.O.G.E. was pitched as a temporary, results-focused task force. Its mandate included auditing federal spending, identifying bureaucratic redundancies, and recommending actionable cost-cutting measures across multiple agencies.
Musk, who accepted the role in what he called a “civic experiment,” worked without pay and assembled a team of analysts, engineers, and AI systems to track inefficiencies. During his 130-day tenure as a special government employee, Musk implemented several measures that reportedly led to substantial savings.
He says he saved the government about $160 billion by slashing waste and fraud. D.O.G.E. also launched a public dashboard, allowing citizens to view real-time government expenditure across select departments.
However, efforts to access and reform various government systems met resistance, leading to internal conflicts and, in some cases, the departure of senior officials. There have been controversies as to whether this was really worth it.
Also, the original target for savings was $2 trillion, but as mentioned earlier, $160 billion was saved. This has led to scrutiny over the feasibility of the original goals. Still, supporters applaud D.O.G.E.’s experimental nature, seeing it as a much-needed shake-up to Washington’s deeply entrenched systems.
Detractors, however, pointed out that while the recommendations are ambitious, only a fraction have been formally adopted by Congress or federal agencies. Still, Musk’s unconventional leadership style and quick-decision approach brought unprecedented attention to the issue of government efficiency, often making it trend weekly on X.
Although the scheduled period for D.O.G.E. has now finished, it seems that this will not be the end. Elon reposted on X: “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning … The DOGE team will only grow stronger overtime … I am confident over time, we will see $1 trillion dollars of waste and fraud reduction.”
Exactly how this will play out remains to be seen. For now, Musk returns to his roles at Tesla, SpaceX, and X, and President Trump expresses his gratitude for the work done.
