Cristiano Ronaldo also attends Trump Saudi Prince Dinner
Elon Musk and several other tech titans attended a black-tie, candlelit White House dinner.
The Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly long gone, a controversial effort by President Donald Trump that laid off thousands of government workers but failed to deliver on promises to cut the federal budget.
This, according to a statement from administration officials, is the proverbial nail in DOGE’s coffin after months of funding cuts and public hostility between the president and the agency’s former chief, tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Secretary Scott Cooper told Reuters earlier this month that DOGE is no longer a “centralized agency.” This is the first time that an official has said that DOGE, which was established less than a year ago, has effectively been disbanded.
Asked about DOGE’s status, Kupol told Reuters: “There is no such thing.”
In response to questions from USA TODAY, OPM pointed to the manager’s social media post on Nov. 23.
“DOGE may not have centralized leadership under @USDS,” Kupor said, referring to the US Digital Service, which has been reorganized into DOGE. “But the principles of DOGE are still alive and well: deregulation, eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse, reorganizing the federal workforce, and making efficiency a first-class citizen.”
Coupole said the agency will “institutionalize” the changes DOGE has made.
The initiative was launched on President Trump’s first day in office in January 2025, and quickly upended many parts of the federal government. It seized control of the information technology infrastructure, terminated federal contracts, and forced or fired tens of thousands of workers.
Trump campaigned for the 2024 presidential election on the promise of reducing the size of the government. However, within months of its creation, DOGE faced several legal challenges and became the center of protests by fired employees.
Here’s what you need to know about the Trump administration’s representative agency.
Is DOGE still active?
It’s not clear. According to Kupol’s comments to Reuters, the Office of Personnel Management has taken over many of DOGE’s functions and the agency no longer exists.
But even after Musk’s dramatic resignation in May, DOGE was scheduled to continue operating through the summer of 2026 under an executive order signed by President Trump in January. As of mid-November, the engine’s lifespan was about 10 months.
What did Doge do?
DOGE is part of the brainchild of Musk, who supported Trump in the 2024 election and became one of the Trump campaign’s biggest donors.
The executive order establishing the agency states its goals are to reduce spending and eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal bureaucracy.
Although DOGE claims to have reduced federal spending by tens of billions of dollars since its creation, DOGE does not provide access to its accounting methods and its estimates have not been independently verified.
Musk has repeatedly insisted that the agency will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion to $2 trillion within the first year. However, the agency’s own calculations published on its website show it has fallen short of that goal. As of November 23, DOGE claims savings have reached $214 billion, less than a quarter of its most modest promise.
When did Elon Musk quit DOGE?
Mr. Musk’s tenure in government was short. In May, the technology mogul and former right-hand man of the president announced he would leave the administration after less than four months as a “special public servant.”
During that time, Musk’s role in the White House faced several challenges. His closeness to the president has sparked a backlash against his car company, Tesla, among some Americans. Musk has clashed with several senior Trump officials over the cost-cutting agenda, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro.
But much has changed since Mr. Musk began criticizing Mr. Trump and his signature spending and tax bill, which he called “a big, beautiful bill,” before Republicans narrowly passed it.
Musk resigned in late May after publicly feuding with Trump over the bill, which Trump criticized and would increase the federal deficit.
After Musk resigned, the administration did not immediately appoint a replacement.
“DOGE leaders are each member of the President’s Cabinet and the President himself,” White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said in a May 29 briefing with reporters.
Several other DOGE executives also left the Trump administration with Musk, and the agency, which at one time had more than 100 employees, has shrunk even further.
Contributor: Joey Garrison, America today.
Kathryn Palmer is USA TODAY’s political reporter. She can be reached at the following address: kapalmer@usatoday.com And to X@Kathryn Purml.
