Musk may be gone, but DOGE is still cutting
On Day 2, they cut the NIH’s pediatric HIV unit. No press release. Just a memo, a lockout, and silence. A grant officer in Bethesda said the team came in like “IT consultants with a grudge.” Another called it “efficiency by chainsaw.”
This was the launch of DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—Trump’s executive order turned real-world weapon. And while Elon Musk may have styled it as a tech-sector moonshot, what followed looked a lot more like an institutional mugging.
“The savings were mostly fictional. The damage wasn’t.”
DOGE’s sales pitch was simple: eliminate waste, shrink bureaucracy, and run government like a business. Musk bragged about cutting $2 trillion. That number dropped fast: first to $1 trillion, then $150 billion, and now, depending on the day, $165 billion appears on DOGE’s site in shaky font next to the words “Wall of Receipts.”
Receipts that, when checked, don’t add up. One listed “$8 billion” saved by canceling a contract worth $8 million. Others claimed expired agreements as current victories. Internal reviews show maybe $2 billion in verifiable cuts. That’s 0.03% of the federal budget—less than what the government loses to inflation rounding errors.
Still, the claim stuck. And that’s all it needed to do.
“DOGE was never about numbers. It was about enemies.”
Target selection wasn’t random. DEI contracts, foreign aid, and education grants went first. Public broadcasting got zeroed out. USAID was dismantled almost overnight. In March, foreign health funding was halved, including money to combat HIV and malaria. UN dues? Gone. Federal science programs? Starved.