The Department of Government Efficiency is gone, quietly wound down after a year that produced more controversy than confirmed savings. Two of its former staffers have decided the idea was sound and the venue was wrong.
On Tuesday they unveiled Special, a firm that intends to buy companies outright and cut their costs by running artificial intelligence through them, taking the DOGE playbook into the private sector where the spreadsheet, at least, is real.
The backers are the story. Special raised from a roster of Elon Musk allies, according to Bloomberg, including Valor Equity Partners founder Antonio Gracias, former xAI chief financial officer Anthony Armstrong and Steve Davis, who served as Musk’s de facto second-in-command at DOGE.
Andreessen Horowitz led an investment of undisclosed size. It is, in effect, the DOGE network reconstituting itself around a commercial vehicle.
The model is private equity with an AI thesis bolted on. Rather than advising companies or selling them software, Special plans to acquire them and apply automation to strip out cost, betting that the same approach DOGE aimed at federal agencies works better when the buyer controls the business and answers to investors rather than voters. The logic is clean on a slide: buy a company, automate its overhead, keep the margin.The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
