JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that he hopes the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will be “quite successful” in its bid to pare back spending and boost efficiency within the federal government.
While he said it was “too binary” to say whether he supported DOGE’s methods, he spoke favorably of improving government efficiency in an interview with CNBC, describing the federal government as “not very competent” and needing “a lot of work.”
“It’s not just waste and fraud, It’s outcomes,” Dimon said. “Why are we spending the money on these things? Are we getting what we deserve? What should we change? I think doing that needs to be done.”
He noted that politicians such as former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore have previously tried to revamp the government and that DOGE “should try.”
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President Donald Trump used an executive order on Jan. 20 to officially establish DOGE, which is headed up by billionaire Elon Musk. Overall, DOGE is seeking to trim $2 trillion in government spending and waste, with Musk telling Stagwell Inc. CEO Mark Penn in early January that it had a “good shot at getting” $1 trillion.
“You have to understand that whenever you go to any big institution or the government, the bureaucracy push back on everything, and they will here, every little thing they’re going to push back on,” Dimon said. “So you have to be strong if you’re going to do it. I’m hoping it’s quite successful.”
The JPMorgan Chase CEO added that while he hopes DOGE does not overreach, “the courts will stop it” should that occur.
“It’s very early stages to tell exactly what it’s going to mean and how it’s going to affect the economy,” he told the outlet.
In the weeks since its inception, DOGE has canceled a number of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at federal agencies as well as certain consulting contracts, canceling leases for underused federal buildings, while also working to consolidate duplicative agencies and programs.
It claimed on its website to have brought $65 billion in total estimated savings to date.
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Dimon said in the interview that “ending fraud and waste and abuse if it brings down the deficit” would mark a success, but argued it goes beyond that.
“If you just identified that we can build better systems across these departments that will more effectuate the jobs they’re supposed to do like modern technology… absolutely we should be doing that,” he said. “We have to learn to do the thing right. It’s not just about the deficit, it’s about building the right policies and procedures and the government we deserve.”
DOGE is expected to finish its cost-cutting efforts by early July 2026.
FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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