logo
What's next for DOGE after Trump's alliance with Musk collapsed

What's next for DOGE after Trump's alliance with Musk collapsed

USA Today9 hours ago

What's next for DOGE after Trump's alliance with Musk collapsed
Show Caption
Hide Caption
President Trump gives his thoughts on Elon Musk amid clash on bill
President Donald Trump responded to Elon Musk's criticism of his "big, beautiful bill" with disappointment as Musk responded on X.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump says the work of the Department of Government Efficiency is "not finished at all" after his relationship Elon Musk blew up in spectacular fashion.
Yet whether the government-slashing DOGE will pack the same punch now that the world's richest man not only left the White House, but turned on Trump in an epic public battle, is unclear.
The future of DOGE was already in limbo after Musk's four-month run as the chainsaw-wielding DOGE leader ended, especially because several other top DOGE officials exited the Trump administration alongside Musk. But then came Musk's war of words last week with Trump that ended their political alliance.
Here's what we know about DOGE's direction in a post-Musk White House:
Trump says DOGE will keep going minus Musk
In the aftermath of their fallout, Trump signaled that he's ready to move on from the Musk fight but not DOGE itself.
The president told reporters on June 6 he's "not thinking about Elon" and has no plans to ask him to return his honorary White House key. Trump added on June 9 that he's not getting rid of the red Tesla car he bought from Musk ‒ but "may move the Tesla around a little bit" ‒ and said he won't ditch Musk's Starlink internet service that was installed at the White House.
More: Trump and Musk's bromance ends after personal attacks over criticism of tax bill
Trump declined to take a shot at Musk when asked about the former White House adviser's alleged drug use and whether he believed Musk used drugs at the White House. "I really don't know. I don't think so. I hope not," Trump said. "We had a good relationship and I just wish him well ‒ very well actually."
For his part, Musk appeared to take back some of his harshest attacks, deleting a post he made on X endorsing Trump's impeachment and another alleging Trump is mentioned in undisclosed classified files related to the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump reiterated that in the wake of recent departures, the work of DOGE, which has executed widespread cuts throughout the federal government, isn't over.
"We saved hundreds of billions of dollars ‒ it's terrific. And it's going further," Trump told reporters on Air Force One on June 6.
More: Elon Musk's rise and fall: From Trump's chainsaw-wielding sidekick to a swift exit
Others out at DOGE
For four months, DOGE rapidly fanned throughout the federal government, seizing control of information technology infrastructure, axing federal government contracts, gutting the United States Agency for International Development and pushing out or firing tens of thousands of federal employees.
DOGE is set to continue operations until the summer of 2026 under an executive order Trump signed in January. But without Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, at the helm, it's unclear if DOGE will operate with the same slash-and-burn aggressiveness.
At its peak, the quasi-official agency employed more than 100 computer engineers, budget analysts and other staffers ‒ some working at the group's offices at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus and others inside various agencies and departments.
More: Elon Musk escalates feud with Trump: 'Time to drop the really big bomb'
Among the other top DOGE employees to follow were Steve Davis, Musk's top lieutenant who oversaw DOGE's day-to-day operations, publicist Katie Miller and DOGE's top attorney James Burnham. Miller, the wife of top White House aide Stephen Miller, has continued to work for Musk.
Musk's exit as the DOGE leader came as his designation as a "special government employee" ‒ which allowed him to stay on the job for 130 calendar days a year ‒ ended. Others in DOGE's top brass were working under the same structure.
Before Musk began to criticize Trump's tax and policy megabill publicly, he asked for his special government employee status to be extended beyond 130 days to allow him to continue to lead DOGE, but the White House declined, a source told USA TODAY.
Russ Vought takes on slashing role post-Musk
The White House has said no individual person will replace Musk, noting that several DOGE employees have "onboarded" as political appointees at the various agencies they've worked to overhaul.
'The mission of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse is a part of the DNA of the federal government," Harrison Fields, White House deputy press secretary, said in a statement to USA TODAY, "and will continue under the direction of the President, his cabinet, and agency heads to enhance government efficiency and prioritize responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars."
Russ Vought, Trump's director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has started to fill Musk's void as the top Trump official carrying out DOGE's stated mission of cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse."
Vought, who also led OMB in Trump's first term, wrote the chapter on executive power in Project 2025, the controversial policy blueprint created by the conservative Heritage Foundation that Trump tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign. Vought uses a lot of the same language as Musk, writing in Project 2025 that the goal should be to "bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will."
Vought, however, isn't calling himself the DOGE leader. Appearing June 4 before the House Appropriations Committee, Vought said the "cabinet agencies that are in charge of the DOGE consultants that work for them are fundamentally in control of DOGE."
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, wasn't pleased with Vought's convoluted answer. "Oh, that's an answer only a mother could love," he said.
White House, GOP leaders look to codify DOGE cuts
Leading up to the Trump-Musk breakup, the business mogul started leveling criticism over the trillions of dollars that Trump's massive tax and spending bill is projected to add to the deficit.
In an appeal to Republican fiscal hawks, the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson have said they want to codify the DOGE cuts, beginning this week when they hope to formally claw back $9.4 billion in spending.
More: President Trump threatens Elon Musk's billions in government contracts as alliance craters
The rescissions package, set for a House vote on June 12, will include $8.3 billion in cuts to foreign aid and $1.1 billion from public broadcasting funds, including for NPR and PBS.
Republican leadership is bullish that they can get the package quickly passed. They have 45 days to approve it, and it only requires a majority vote in the Senate.
But it may not be so simple: Several lawmakers have concerns with the rollback of a Bush-era program to support AIDS prevention and with the impact on rural communities that rely on public media for information.
Vought has said future legislative packages to enact DOGE cuts could come later if the initial rescissions package passes.
Musk left White House with DOGE goals unmet
Musk left the White House after falling vastly short of his ambitious cost-savings goal for the federal government.
Musk had set a goal for DOGE to cut $1 trillion from the federal government by the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. He had even talked about $2 trillion in cuts on the 2024 campaign trail when he stumped for Trump.
More: 'Elon is going to get decimated:' How Trump's feud with the world's richest man might end
But DOGE's savings total posted on its website currently stands at $180 billion, which does amount to even 20% of $1 trillion. And this does not even factor in potential exaggerations or errors in DOGE's calculations, which have been a recurring theme in the group's declared savings.
"I did not find the federal government to be rife with waste, fraud and abuse. I was expecting some more easy wins," Sahil Lavingia, a former DOGE engineer, said in an interview with National Public Radio.
Lavingia added that he believed DOGE had produced many examples of government "waste" but disagreed that DOGE uncovered mountains of "fraud and abuse" like Musk claimed.
"The government has been under sort of a magnifying glass for decades," Lavingia said. "And so I think, generally, I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was. This isn't to say that it can't be made more efficient."
DOGE rehiring some terminated workers
Before he left, Musk said DOGE's next focus will be on fixing the federal government's aging computer systems ‒ something far less controversial than taking a battering ram to the federal workforce.
In the meantime, some federal agencies and departments are doing cleanup work to repatch holes left by the mass exodus of federal worker departures steered by DOGE.
The National Science Foundation said it was reinstating several dozen employees following a May federal court ruling that found the mass cuts by DOGE were unlawfully forced by the Office of Personnel Management.
The Washington Post reported that several agencies, including the IRS, Food and Drug Administration, and even USAID, are also scrambling to rehire many of the probationary employees fired under DOGE's direction and bring back longtime federal workers who accepted voluntary buyouts.
Contributing: Riley Beggin of USA TODAY
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

In their own words: Trump, Newsom trade insults and barbs over National Guard in Los Angeles

time30 minutes ago

In their own words: Trump, Newsom trade insults and barbs over National Guard in Los Angeles

The swiftly evolving situation in the Los Angeles area over protests surrounding immigration enforcement actions has also cued up a public spat between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has been one of the Republican president's most vocal Democratic critics. After Trump on Sunday called up 2,000 National Guard troops to respond, Newsom said he would sue the administration, a promise on which the state followed through a day later. Trump cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States." The president also agreed with one of his top advisers that maybe the governor should be arrested. Here's a look at back-and-forth between Trump and Newsom in their own words: 'You have violent people, and we're not gonna let them get away with it.' — Trump, Sunday, in remarks to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey. ___ Newsom's ire has been elevated over Trump's decision to, without his support, call up the California National Guard for deployment into his state. In a letter Sunday, Newsom called on Trump to rescind the Guard deployment, calling it a 'serious breach of state sovereignty.' The governor, who was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and other officials, also told protesters they were playing into Trump's plans and would face arrest for violence or property destruction. 'Trump wants chaos and he's instigated violence,' he said. 'Stay peaceful. Stay focused. Don't give him the excuse he's looking for.' In an interview with MSNBC, Newsom said Sunday he had spoken with Trump 'late Friday night,' after the protests had begun, but said deploying the National Guard 'never came up.' "We talked for almost 20 minutes, and he — barely, this issue never came up. I mean, I kept trying to talk about LA, he wanted to talk about all these other issues," Newsom said. 'We had a very decent conversation.' 'He never once brought up the National Guard,' Newsom said of Trump, calling him 'a stone-cold liar.' Saying, 'I did call him the other night,' Trump told reporters Sunday that he told Newsom in that call: ''Look you've got to take care of this. Otherwise I'm sending in the troops.' ... That's what we did.' On Monday, Trump posted on social media that Los Angeles would have been 'completely obliterated' without his intervention and referred to Newsom as 'Newscum,' a pejorative moniker he has used to refer to the governor. 'We are suing Donald Trump. This is a manufactured crisis. He is creating fear and terror to take over a state militia and violate the U.S. constitution.' — Newsom, Monday, X post. ___ As Newsom promised, California officials sued the Trump administration on Monday, with the state's attorney general, Rob Bonta, arguing that the deployment of troops 'trampled' on the state's sovereignty and pushing for a restraining order. The initial deployment of 300 National Guard troops was expected to quickly expand to the full 2,000 that were authorized by Trump. Late Monday, Trump authorized an additional 2,000 National Guard troops. Ahead of that move, Newsom accused the president of inflaming tensions, breaching state sovereignty and wasting resources, while warning protesters not to 'take Trump's bait.' Teasing the suit, Newsom told MSNBC that he saw the deployment as 'an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.' Asked Monday about the lawsuit, Trump said it was 'interesting' and argued 'that place would be burning down' without the federal government's intervention. 'I'm very happy I got involved," Trump added. "I think Gavin in his own way is very happy I got involved.' 'I think it's great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing." — Trump, Monday, in remarks to reporters. ___ Tom Homan, the Trump administration's border czar, previously warned that anyone, including public officials, would be arrested if they obstructed federal immigration enforcement. Newsom's initial response to Homan, during the MSNBC interview and in subsequent posts on his own social media: 'Come and get me, tough guy.' On Monday Trump seemed to agree with his border chief, telling reporters, 'I would do it if I were Tom.' 'I think it's great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing,' Trump added. "He's done a terrible job. Look — I like Gavin, he's a nice guy, but he's grossly incompetent, everybody knows." Homan later said there was 'no discussion' about actually arresting Newsom, but reiterated that 'no one's above the law.' wrote Monday on X that they represented 'a day I hoped I would never see in America' and said Trump's call for his arrest marked 'an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.'

MAGA Supporters Counter Anti-ICE Protests: 'Go Back to Mexico'
MAGA Supporters Counter Anti-ICE Protests: 'Go Back to Mexico'

Newsweek

time30 minutes ago

  • Newsweek

MAGA Supporters Counter Anti-ICE Protests: 'Go Back to Mexico'

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Several Donald Trump supporters in Tampa, Florida, have started counter-protests to anti-ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, demonstrations. Video footage posted on X, formerly Twitter, shows a man holding a red "MAGA country" flag chanting "we want ICE" and telling a woman holding a Mexican flag: "If you love Mexico, go back to Mexico." In another clip, a group of men can be seen holding a Trump-Vance banner, before move for a truck coming through. Hundreds gathered outside Tampa's City Hall to protest on Monday, after a weekend of violent clashes between anti-ICE demonstrators and law enforcement. Police intervened during some heated moments between anti-ICE protesters and counter-protesters but there was no violence, according to Tampa broadcaster FOX13. This is a developing story - more to follow.

Attorney for Deported Makeup Artist: If ‘It Could Happen to Him … It Could Happen to You.'
Attorney for Deported Makeup Artist: If ‘It Could Happen to Him … It Could Happen to You.'

Business of Fashion

time32 minutes ago

  • Business of Fashion

Attorney for Deported Makeup Artist: If ‘It Could Happen to Him … It Could Happen to You.'

In a defiant speech, Lindsay Toczylowski, president and co-founder of social justice legal firm Immigrant Defenders Law Center, called the deportation of undocumented immigrants without due process a direct attack on democracy. Her client, Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old Venezuelan makeup artist seeking asylum in the US, was in March deported to El Salvador, where he was taken to the country's notorious CECOT prison along with over 200 other Venezuelan and Salvadoran deportees. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the Trump administration over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport undocumented immigrants without due process, said in court filings that the government relied solely on Romero's tattoos to incorrectly label him a violent gang member. Family and supporters say they fear for the safety of Romero, who is gay and was seeking asylum after being persecuted for his sexual orientation in Venezuela. He has not been seen or heard from since his arrival in El Salvador, including by his legal representation. 'The only fight that we lose is the one we give up on… It's about the future of our democracy and the country we want to live in,' she said, speaking at The Business of Beauty Global Forum in Napa Valley, California. 'His story is the embodiment of it could happen to him, it could happen to me, it could happen to you, it could happen to any one of us. It's why the rule of law is so important. It's why due process is so important.' Toczylowski also addressed escalating tensions in Los Angeles, where President Donald Trump has sent thousands of National Guard and Marines to quell protests against ICE deportation roundups in the city. Opponents of the move, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, say the decision to send troops was disproportionate to the small number of violent incidents associated with the protests, and will only inflame the situation. On Monday, protests spread to other cities around the country. 'There are more than 200 residents of Los Angeles that have been picked up off the streets,' said Toczylowski. 'I have watched masked agents in plain clothes push people into service elevators in the middle of federal buildings in downtown LA in the last two weeks. This is an all-out assault on the values that we hold as Angelenos, as Californians, as Americans.' She said one of the most important methods of pushing back against the Trump administration's immigration actions, whether in LA or El Salvador, is to speak out against them as often, and as forcefully as possible. 'The moment that we stop talking about [Romero], about his story and others like him is the moment that the Trump administration is successful in completing the disappearance of Andry José Hernández Romero,' she said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store