The DOGE project that's still going strong

Politico

9 hours ago

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Even as the influence of DOGE wanes across Washington, at least one initiative from the once-feared project is thriving.
The effort to digitize the federal government's paper-based retirement system, led by DOGE member and Airbnb co-founder JOE GEBBIA, is progressing steadily ahead of what is expected to be an unusually busy season.
Unlike many of DOGE's controversial initiatives, this one is widely supported across President DONALD TRUMP's administration. That's thanks to both an impending flood of retirement applications and the absurdity of the current system, which relies in large part on Iron Mountain, a decommissioned limestone mine in western Pennsylvania, to store records.
'Gebbia carries a lot of clout,' said one official close to DOGE, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The need for modernization is unquestioned. Roughly 100,000 federal workers retire every year, and their forms are largely stored on paper in the vast mine located roughly an hour outside Pittsburgh.
And this is unlikely to be a typical year. The Office of Personnel Management is bracing for a surge in retirements at the end of the year from the crush of federal employees who have opted into the administration's Voluntary Early Retirement and deferred resignation programs.
OPM on July 15 stopped accepting paper applications and launched the third iteration of its Online Retirement Application system, which is replacing the Government Benefits Platform.
The push is led by a small coalition of DOGE members and civil servants based at OPM. Alongside Gebbia, the group includes DOGE veterans AKASH BOBBA and JAMIE SULLIVAN, OPM Director SCOTT KUPOR, and a pair of former Airbnb engineers — YAT CHOI and ANDREW VILCSAK — who joined over the summer, according to agency records viewed by West Wing Playbook. They've worked hand-in-hand with longtime OPM career staff like KIMYA LEE and human resources officials from the IRS.
'We started with low-hanging fruit including the automation of the retirement application process, the calculation of basic retirement annuities, and with the capability to support digital signatures on a subset of retirement-related documents,' former OPM Chief Technology Officer AL HIMLER, who left government earlier this year, wrote in a blog post last month.
'The team at OPM have been working tirelessly to take the federal retirement system digital,' Kupor said in a statement. 'Success will be for nearly all federal employees to self retire in a matter of seconds as opposed to the antiquated process that can take several months if not years to complete.'
Gebbia's presence, in particular, has helped inoculate the project from the political drama that stymied other DOGE efforts. Unlike STEVE DAVIS, the former DOGE lead who tried to stay past his welcome and had a falling out with senior White House officials as a result, Gebbia has maintained a low profile inside government.
'Joe's got a name that's well recognized, and the work that he's doing is not political,' said a person familiar with DOGE, also granted anonymity to speak freely.
That wasn't always obvious. When Gebbia joined DOGE in February while the group was slashing and burning its way through federal agencies, Airbnb moved quickly to distance itself from its co-founder.
'Joe is joining DOGE in his personal capacity,' CHRISTOPHER NULTY, Airbnb's head of corporate communications, told Skift,a travel news site. 'His personal views don't reflect the views of Airbnb or Airbnb.org.'
Though Gebbia was a longtime Democratic donor, he says he 'voted Republican' in 2024. He embraced the Make America Healthy Again movement, including Trump's revival of the Presidential Fitness Test and HHS Secretary ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.'s plans to overhaul the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
He's also shown flashes of the pugnacious tone that has become a DOGE trademark. 'At this point anyone still taking time out of their life to protest @DOGE and name call using the third reich has outed themselves as having an actual disorder,' Gebbia posted on X last week.
Elsewhere in the Trump administration, the DOGE effort to negotiate better rates for the federal government by forming direct relationships with IT manufacturers is also moving forward.
That project, dubbed 'OneGov,' is being led by OG DOGE members JOSH GRUENBAUM, head of the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service, and STEPHEN EHIKIAN, deputy acting administrator of GSA.
MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at [e-mail].
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POTUS PUZZLER
Who was the only U.S. president to never marry?
(Answer at bottom.)
Agenda Setting
(NOT) TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: The Trump administration wants to end two major satellite missions that collect data on carbon dioxide and crop health, which is used by scientists, farmers and oil and gas companies, according to current and former NASA staffers, NPR's REBECCA HERSHER reports. Administration officials asked NASA to draw up plans to end the programs, which are the only two federal satellite missions designed specifically to monitor greenhouse gases.
The missions, known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, are made up of two satellites. One is attached to the International Space Station, while the other is a stand-alone satellite that would burn up in the atmosphere if terminated. NASA did not return NPR's request for comment.
LUNAR NUCLEAR REACTOR: NASA, in a sign of the space agency's shifting priorities, is speeding up plans to replace the International Space Station and build a lunar nuclear reactor to compete with China in space, our SAM SKOVE reports.
The space station directive aims to replace the aging, leaky International Space Station with commercially run ones by changing how the agency awards contracts. The nuclear reactor order directs the agency to start work on a means to power a lunar station.
The plans align with the Trump administration's focus on human spaceflight. The White House has proposed a budget that would increase human spaceflight funds for 2026, even as it advocates for major cuts in other programs, including a nearly 50 percent cut for science missions.
DOGE-WHAT? Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS earlier today threw his support behind a movement calling for his state's version of DOGE to be renamed the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight — or FAFO. Florida CFO BLAISE INGOGLIA rolled out the new name this weekend to a rave reception, our KIMBERLY LEONARD reports.
HOLD PLEASE: GOP Sens. CHUCK GRASSLEY of Iowa and JOHN CURTIS of Utah are holding up three of Trump's Treasury nominees over the implementation of the Republican megabill's renewable energy tax provisions, our KELSEY TAMBORRINO and JOSH SIEGEL report.
A handful of Senate Republicans have been trying to meet with administration officials over forthcoming guidance that will determine the phase-out timing of the tax credits and wind and solar power. They are concerned that an aggressive timeline would strangle pending projects. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately provide comment.
WHERE TRUMP AND BIDEN AGREE: The Trump administration said today it will defend a Biden-era rule requiring that nearly all lead pipes be removed from the country's drinking water systems within a decade, our ANNIE SNIDER reports.
The Trump administration made lead contamination a major focus at EPA during his first term and issued its own update to the regulation governing it in drinking water systems. But that rule did not require lead lines to be removed unless they were leaching the contaminant into tap water at elevated levels.
The Biden-era rule was issued in the administration's waning months and was eligible for expedited repeal by lawmakers under the Congressional Review Act. While legislation to do so was filed by Republican lawmakers, GOP leaders opted not to take it up.
Musk Radar
CHA-CHING: Former DOGE leader ELON MUSK today was awarded 96 million shares of Tesla, worth about $29 billion, CNBC's CHRIS EUDAILY and LORA KOLODNY report.
The car maker said the sum will vest in two years so long as he remains as CEO or in another senior executive position. The deal would be void if a pending legal battle over Musk's 2018 compensation ends with him being able to capture a larger, $56 billion, pay package.
SPEAKING OF MUSK MONEY: Building America's Future, a dark-money group that has been supported by Musk, is spending more than $1 million dollars to promote recent White House wins, including the GOP megabill that Musk once called 'a disgusting abomination.' A 30-second ad due to run on Fox News will congratulate Trump on the bill's passage.
The Oval
PAY THE MAN: Trump again threatened to raise tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases — even as the White House has hinted for months that it was close to a trade deal with India, our GREGORY SVIRNOVSKIY reports. The move comes as Trump prepares to send his special envoy STEVE WITKOFF to Russia this week.
What We're Reading
Meet the former federal workers documenting their unemployment online (Axios' Mimi Montgomery)
Trump's slew of federal layoffs is benefitting at least one industry (POLITICO's Michael Schaffer)
POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER
The 15th president, JAMES BUCHANAN, was the only president who never married.