3 days ago
EXCLUSIVE DOGE loses its head Elon Musk but his 'super-genius' nerd army troops are now inside the deep state
Elon Musk is loosening his grip on the Department of Government Efficiency but as his followers have scattered, many have been absorbed into the federal government with the hopes of continuing the mission.
The group of young 'super-geniuses' who stepped away from prominent jobs or their pursuit of a college degree volunteered for working long hours, through weekends, sleeping in their offices, and earned a renegade reputation.
'They're doing a hell of a job, it's an amazing job they're doing,' President Trump said. 'You know that force is building, I call it the force of super-geniuses,' he said in February.
But with Musk's exit Friday, the days of DOGE in the spotlight have come to an end.
'DOGE is Done,' former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told the Daily Mail on the day of Musk's departure, tying up the Elon-run effort.
As Trump bid farewell to Musk in the Oval Office, the billionaire wore a shirt describing himself as the 'Dogefather,' indicating his desire to be remembered as the father of a political movement he hoped would continue.
'This is not the end of DOGE but really the beginning,' he said, promising that the DOGE team would only get stronger.
The president agreed.
'Elon's really not leaving, he's going to be back and forth i think ... it's his baby,' Trump said.
Today, DOGE employees have been sent to different departments, and are quietly working within the system.
Some of them view themselves as more missionaries than mercenaries, and even as Musk's public role fades, they expect the work to go on.
The work of cutting government waste and dismantling the 'administrative state,' one of Bannon's biggest priorities, would continue in the Office of Management and Budget which is 'where DOGE is housed' to begin with, he said.
OMB director, Russ Vought, who helped co-author Project 2025, remains engaged with the efforts, but ultimately the traditional hierarchy of the federal government has snapped back into place.
Some of Trump's most visible cabinet members view the DOGE brand as a net positive, as they have worked to implement it into their departments.
One DOGE 'agent' told Fox News host Jesse Watters in an interview that his work was thriving at the State Department with Secretary Marco Rubio.
'There are people in the State Department that will stop you, in all the agencies that we've been to that will stop you in the hallways or write emails and say I was scared to write this or I don't know if you were interested in this but they usually have great ideas, they usually have the best ideas,' he said. 'They often have the best ideas.'
Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo on Friday giving the department's DOGE team 'the opportunity to provide input on all unclassified contracts' he noted proudly on Thursday.
Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who famously clashed with Musk at the White House, has absorbed the DOGE effort into his department.
'The 'E' in DOGE is efficiency,' Bessent said in an interview. 'It's not elimination. It's not extinction. We are trying to make the government do better for the American people and right-size it.'
The White House confirmed that the Trump administration would continue the job of DOGE in Musk's absence — even though it would effectively be the federal government.
'The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president's cabinet and each and the president himself,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.
The outsiders of DOGE have now been absorbed into the government or politely decided to leave.
With the departure of its founder comes the end of the myth that Musk created - that somehow a group of outsider tech geniuses could fix the problems and root out government corruption and waste.
Musk's efforts were impossible to ignore, fueled by a an excited MAGA base that was delighted with his antics.
'What is it you say you do here?' he asked, channeling the film Office Space by sending government employees an order to email him to prove their worth by asking them what they had accomplished that week.
The decision to shutter USAID entirely won the respect from even the most cynical political interests, as cutting off the slush-fund for so many non-profits connected to left-wing causes signaled a major victory.
At the White House, Musk's appearances at cabinet meetings symbolized the uncanny clash of two worlds - buttoned up bureaucrats vs the more free ranging tech genius of Silicon Valley.
'Even my hat has a hat,' Musk said, putting one of Trump's Gulf of America hats on top of his existing MAGA hat.
'Elon, I love the double hat, but he's the only one can do that, and get away with it,' Trump said, shaking his head.
Musk's untraditional antics became the fodder of legends for some and cringe for others.
'I have become meme,' Musk declared at CPAC in February, wearing sunglasses and welding a bright shiny chainsaw given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei.
'This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!' he shouted waving it in the air with enthusiasm. 'Yeah!'
Musk was entranced by Milei's ability to capture the imaginations of not only his country but the entire world, as the chainsaw welding wild haired libertarian delivered a victory in 2023 against all odds.
When Milei took power, he cut the number of government ministries, fired over 40,000 government employees, lowered inflation, cut reduced government spending, and dismantled large parts of the federal bureaucracy.
Imagine what the United States, the birthplace of the idea of limited government could accomplish.
But Musk's dreams of single-handedly slashing $2 trillion from the federal government fell short.
It was limited government that ended up as the biggest block to Musk's dreams.
Musk's experiment demonstrated that the power of the executive branch to make significant cuts is limited.
Only Congress can deliver the trillions of dollars in savings that Musk so desperately wanted. After all, it is Congress that controls the power of the purse.
With the dream of DOGE established, Musk indicated he was ready to leave.
'That's it really,' he said at the conclusion of his remarks on Friday, shrugging his shoulders.
