Is Elon Musk Right On DOGE Or Does President Trump Need East Coast AI?

Forbes

14-07-2025

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: Storm clouds hover over the U.S. Capitol shortly after the Senate passed ... More its version of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act on July 01, 2025 in Washington, DC. Republicans in the House of Representatives began their work on the legislation less than two hours after the Senate passed its version. (Photo by)
Standing at a critical juncture with Artificial Intelligence, the U.S. Government needs a big reboot. Beyond the headlines regarding AI legislation, and the latest plot twists with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), fundamental questions remain: Can AI fix how government works and who will win the AI arms race?
For many that I know and work with in Washington, the promise of this technology still feels more theoretical than a pragmatic path to tangible progress. The stakes are high and our leaders, from the president on down, need to learn to embrace the right AI or risk the consequences of being left behind, or worse, fall into the trap of misguided implementations in public service.
When I discussed this with CEO's inside and outside the beltway, common themes emerge that can help governments and businesses work better together. Appian CEO Matt Calkins offers a blunt assessment. He has been working with the U.S. federal government for decades with software embedded within all 15 cabinet-level U.S. agencies and military branches. He explains that the government, by necessity, operates under a old mandate to "move cautiously and break nothing," making it a reluctant outlier in the AI gold rush exploding around the globe. This caution isn't the problem; the problem is the prevailing Silicon Valley AI model, inherently unsuited for Washington's containment demands.
West Coast AI Vs. Contain Blast Radius Mandates
The dominant AI narrative, shaped by Elon Musk and the other Silicon Valley tech giants is a "move fast and break things" ethos. This is juxtaposed to 'contain the blast radius' demands of most governments. Their Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI (GenAI) thrive on vast, often undifferentiated data pools. While effective in commercial spheres, this approach to AI, which often involves a disregard for data privacy, is viewed as unsuitable for Washington.
This clash was starkly revealed during the recent blowup of DOGE. Although Elon went in with an innovator's mindset, the initiative ultimately faltered by attacking the wrong thing, focusing on personnel cuts rather than systemic reform. Calkins laments, "We saw Elon the deleter and not Elon the builder." The emphasis on "deletion ran ahead of everything else—rather than building modern replacements—proved a critical misstep'.
TOPSHOT - Billionaire Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), holds a ... More chainsaw reading "Long live freedom, damn it" as he shakes hands with Argentinian President Javier Milei at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025. The chainsaw was a present to Elon Musk from Argentina's President Javier Milei. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Many think, the fundamental flaw is treating government like a startup. But, in working with the U.S. NSF, DHS and others, I've seen the positive impacts of building entrepreneurial capabilities into large organizations and institutions. I lead a program called Dancing with Startups, developed in partnership with some of the world's largest corporations and governments, while I was teaching at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Though the efficiency and growth results can be very powerful, the program is most successful when a mothership organization trusts the new group enough to separate it from the bureaucratic command and control culture.
"The federal government is harder to reform than Twitter," Calkins cautions. "Twitter wasn't necessary to anybody's life and if he literally blew it up, it's OK...but we do need the government. The government's there for safety and solidity. " This leaves many government leaders concerned that risking essential public services for rapid, unproven tech deployment could lead to misguided implementation.
Compounding this, systemic issues cripple effective AI adoption. "Historically, the CIO has been a weak role: more ceremonial than operational," Calkins explains, battling short tenures and vendors who outlast leaders. Furthermore, a significant bias against intermediaries in contracting creates a tax on government that makes it slow and inefficient, preventing agile, value-delivering firms from reaching decision-makers directly.' The result? A pattern of ineffective AI choices in government today.
East Coast AI Is Fit For Public Service
Is there an intelligent path forward? The solution lies in what Calkins terms "East Coast AI"—an approach that aligns with Washington's immutable values and incremental, demonstrable value.
"What Washington needs is East Coast AI, which prioritizes privacy and control and doesn't have to move data," Calkins asserts. This isn't about revolutionary, human-replacing intelligence; it's about boring AI – the kind that tackles the mundane, repetitive tasks that bog down government operations, utilizing tech. that streamline complex workflows. 'AI should be a worker not a helper', he explains, "nothing else justifies the immense investment. We should ask AI to do the highest-volume, most essential jobs – not novelties or one-off acts of creativity." Makes sense, boring AI should work hard at simple jobs, that help organizations serve their customers and save money.
For vendors trying to help the government, the focus on efficiency instilled by initiatives like DOGE is a great opportunity and a relief. It allows more agile vendors to break through the stranglehold that larger firms have had on federal dollars. Calkins notes, 'Everyone cares about efficiency right now, and the US government could be more efficient than it is.' Indeed.
A Path Forward For DOGE And Rebooters
The ultra-compressed timeline approach witnessed with DOGE underscored the urgent need for agility. More emerging vendors are working with DOGE to help them reach their goals ahead of schedule. President Trump's cabinet members have their CXOs focused on cost saving efficiencies and identifying the highest-volume, most essential jobs ripe for AI. Technology exists to implement them safely and effectively, particularly with solutions designed for control and privacy. The first priority is demonstrating tangible value in contained, low-risk environments (blast radius) to build internal trust and momentum. Common sense, right? Not always, in government we still have a need for speed.
Calkins advice to government leaders: "There's a few obvious areas where AI can add value, like communication interpretation of laws, [and] processing of incoming applications and bids. There are places where AI can make a big difference." These immediate opportunities represent quick wins for efficiency and accountability—low hanging fruit that taxpayers should be demanding.
In a few years, if governments embrace this intelligent East Coast AI approach, we could see a fundamental transformation: hyper-efficient public services, data-driven policy-making, and empowered public servants focused on strategic initiatives. The goal isn't an AI-run government, but an AI-enabled government – more responsive, efficient…and hopefully trusted.
Attack Surface Leaders Embrace Big Beautiful Reboot
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 03: U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) presides over the vote for ... More H.R. 1, the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act in the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol on July 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. The House passed the sweeping tax and spending bill after winning over fiscal hawks and moderate Republicans. The bill makes permanent President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, increase spending on defense and immigration enforcement and temporarily cut taxes on tips, while at the same time cutting funding for Medicaid, food assistance for the poor, clean energy and raises the nation's debit limit by $5 trillion. (Photo by)
The new era of AI is unfolding, whether everyone is ready or not, and the strategic imperative for government transformation is about making intelligent choices for pragmatic, privacy-centric AI. Like it or not government leaders must champion approaches that prioritize control, transparency, and incremental value over risky move fast and break things deployments.
Heck, Musk himself, after navigating the challenges, reportedly planned to focus DOGE's future efforts on improving the federal bureaucracy's computer systems, a less-controversial goal than taking a chainsaw to the workforce. This shift aligns perfectly with the East Coast AI get it done philosophy.
By embracing East Coast AI, Washington can finally begin its own Big Beautiful Reboot, transforming bureaucratic burdens into engines of public service, ensuring American competitiveness, and earning back the trust of the people it serves. "In most areas of technology, government lags," Calkins asserts. "This could be a major shift for the government to turn around and say, 'Now we actually want to be pioneers.'' As a Silicon Valley leader, I would love to see that.
Many CEOs agree with this idea, like Vishal Chawla, CEO of cyber security firm BluOcean who added: 'In cybersecurity, we focus on the attack surface. In government that surface is "Public Trust". We've turned AI into a cyber nuke with no rules of engagement—while adversaries deploy LLMs to breach, impersonate, and disrupt, our leaders are still drafting policy memos. Trust isn't defended by flash—it's protected by guardrails, governance, and boring AI that just works. If we get that wrong, we're outmatched before the next briefing even begins.' I wonder, is AI writing the briefings?
He went on to say 'If AI can fake your boss, file a contract, and reroute money—how do you defend that? You don't, unless your systems are built with resilience from day one. Washington doesn't need AI that thinks like a philosopher—it needs AI that stamps out fraud, clears bottlenecks, and locks down the digital plumbing of public service. That's East Coast AI: spine, security, control, privacy, resilience and zero tolerance for hallucinations.' Philosophical hallucinations, oh my.
I've seen this firsthand, in my volunteer roles with our federal government, serving as an advisor on agency task forces across administrations—from Internet, telecom, and H1B policy to cyber, broadband, and TV standards. Beyond advising and lobbying, we often end up helping to solve problems with more entrepreneurial mindsets in the hope of modernizing simple processes that Washington often overcomplicates.
Drazen Alcocer, CEO of Patriotly, a government services partnership group focused on what AI can do for those who've served, put it this way: "Streamlined isn't typically associated with government, but from my experience serving with the USMC, it does value efficiency. We have reached a point in our journey with AI where typical government and military programs are costing more by not adopting updated AI approaches. One key sector Patriotly has set its sights on is making the transition of our nation's military members and spouses into the private sector more efficient, by empowering them with innovative technology and tools to streamline their journey into the next chapter of their lives." Now that's an AI mission I can get behind.
Like in Silicon Valley, the spoils will not just go to the fastest, but to those who can navigate this change strategically, and make the biggest and best government impacts, without succumbing to misguided AI implementations. The time to deliver is now—giddy up.