FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO, WIRED introduced the world to a cadre of young, inexperienced technologists who were working with Elon Musk’s newly formed, so-called Department of Government Efficiency. These workers, many of them between the ages of 19 and 24, were given the keys to the US government. They were also quickly the subject of controversy, as they laid waste to government agencies with little rhyme or reason. When Musk departed DOGE, many of the people who constituted DOGE’s early strike force dispersed.
But as the dust has settled, it’s clear that DOGE’s efforts have caused lasting damage in both large and small ways—from the more than 300,000 federal workers fired to the destruction of the US Agency for International Development to even just increased wait times for assistance on the Social Security Agency’s phone lines.
Yet its members have been given positions of increased responsibility, both inside the government and out, despite the fact that DOGE’s own members described the organization as “chaotic” and the group failed to achieve many of its goals.
Musk’s DOGE may no longer exist as it did a year ago, but its impact continues to ripple across the government. Just as Musk used allegations of fraud and waste as a way to cut government jobs and cripple whole government agencies, the Trump administration has recently maintained that it has continued taking aim at “waste, fraud, and abuse.” While some of DOGE’s operatives have remained in government, ascending to powerful positions within the administration, others have moved to the private sector. In some cases, those moves were back to companies that maintain strong connections to Musk or other players in his Silicon Valley universe.
