DOGE Was a Chaos Factory With a Savings Byproduct

In February, when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was at the seeming height of its chain-saw-wielding power, participants on the betting market Kalshi briefly put the odds that Musk and President Donald Trump would cut federal spending by $250 billion or more in 2025 at higher than 50%. The betting odds that they would cut spending by $2 trillion — the amount Musk had floated at a Trump rally before the election in October — had peaked at 15.8% not long after the market was launched in November. Now both are in the low single digits, which still seems unreasonably high.

Musk’s time in Washington ended in May, although after a summer falling-out with Trump so acrimonious and public that it has its own Wikipedia page, he is welcome again for dinner at the White House. DOGE struggled to regroup after his departure and has recently ceased to exist as a “centralized entity,” according to the federal government’s personnel chief, although some of its former members still work in key government roles. And when it comes to the administration’s spending (and cutting) priorities, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought was arguably always more influential than Musk, and he’s still on the job.