There’s a new top DOGE in town.
With tech mogul Elon Musk officially wrapping up his time at the cost-cutting initiative he pioneered, President Trump and his Cabinet officials are stepping up to fill the void in the Department of Government Efficiency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed.
“The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the President’s cabinet — and the president himself — who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday when asked about the initiative’s new leadership structure.
Musk, 53, had been winding down his DOGE responsibilities in recent weeks as his time as a special government employee was set to conclude by the end of May.
Now he returns to leading his businesses, including Tesla, which has been battered by brutal sales numbers out of Europe and uncertainty over how to navigate Trump’s tariff policies, among other issues.
Musk’s de facto No. 2 at DOGE, Steve Davis, has also departed his role due to the limitations of special government employees being allowed to serve 130 days in government per year, Bloomberg reported.
On paper, neither was technically in charge of DOGE, though in practice, they were widely seen as the department’s leaders. In February, the Trump administration announced that Amy Gleason was the acting administrator for the US DOGE Services.
Despite Musk’s departure, Leavitt stressed that much of the talent he brought on is expected to stay, at least to the best of her knowledge.
“The entire Cabinet is involved,” she explained. “I spoke to the president about it this morning, and the entire Cabinet understands the need to cut government waste, fraud, and abuse, and each Cabinet secretary at their respective agencies is committed to that.
“They’ll continue to work with the respective DOGE employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies,” she added. “Surely the mission of DOGE will continue.”
DOGE had been met with much fanfare from conservatives, particularly among fiscal hawks in Congress.
Over recent days, however, Musk and others have struck a gloomy tone about DOGE, suggesting that Republicans are undercutting its progress with the advancement of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told “CBS Sunday Morning” in a pre-recorded interview.
Musk also bemoaned to the Washington Post that “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything” and publicly buttressed criticisms of congressional Republicans for not codifying the DOGE cuts.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has since reaffirmed plans to put those cuts into law.
DOGE estimates it has saved over $175 billion in spending — roughly $1,087 per taxpayer — but that claim is heavily disputed, and several analyses have found the savings to be overstated.
One cursory assessment from OpenTheBooks, a government transparency organization, found that only 27% of DOGE’s grant-related claims and 42% of its contract-related claims could be verified.
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