One of the most closely watched efforts introduced by Donald Trump upon his return to the White House is undeniably DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Two of Trump’s closest allies—multi-billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur turned politician and former presidential candidate—will lead the new body.
DOGE is an advisory group rather than a federal department. Musk and Ramaswamy work ‘pro bono’ as external private experts. They aim to slash all “unnecessary costs and regulations,” resulting in a more streamlined and efficient administration.
They pledge to restructure some of the leading federal agencies or even completely liquidate them.
Ramaswami vows to shut down the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the US Department of Education.
Musk is trying to dismantle all bureaucracy and promises overall cuts of around $2 trillion, about a third of the federal government’s annual budget.
In a first glimpse of what will happen when DOGE is up and running, last month, the power duo stopped a bipartisan spending bill in Congress by taking to social media, urging taxpayers to help “stop the steal,” and threatening lawmakers with primary challenges if they voted for it.
From a legal point of view, however, there could be some hurdles on the horizon. “Notwithstanding its formal name, the Department of Government Efficiency will be purely advisory in nature,” notes Caleb Burns, Attorney at Law at Wiley Rein. “Whether it can operate privately, and the extent to which the President can execute on DOGE’s recommendations, is not as a legal matter entirely clear and may have to be settled by the courts. The President cannot simply wipe regulations off the books,” he adds, “but must comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, requiring agencies to take certain deliberative actions which are often grounds for legal challenge.”
Mixed expectations exist about whether and how DOGE could cut through government inefficiency. However, considering how the two moguls have fared so far, they might be able to make it.