In summary
- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce federal regulations and spending.
- DOGE, linked to the Dogecoin meme, proposes cutting the federal budget by up to a third and eliminating agencies such as the FBI and Education.
- The announcement boosted the price of Dogecoin, which hit three-year highs, reflecting Musk’s impact on meme cryptocurrencies.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new US government initiative aimed at reducing the federal budget deficit.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is an initiative that has an acronym identical to the ticker of Musk’s favorite Cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, which according to President-elect Donald Trump “will cut excessive regulations, reduce unnecessary expenses and restructure Federal Agencies.”
However, some details about the project remain unclear. This is everything we know so far about DOGE.
What is DOGE?
DOGE is an ongoing US government initiative that Elon Musk first tweeted about last August.
While the project initially appeared to be a joke, created as a joke and, unsurprisingly, driving up the price of Dogecoin every time it was mentioned by Musk, Trump expressed his support for DOGE’s initiative to curb government spending, suggesting that the formerly fictitious department will actually become an entity affiliated with the US government.
“Together, (Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy) will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce excessive regulations, cut wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies, essential to the ‘Save America’ movement,” Trump said. Tuesday in a statement.
The project will be active until “no later than July 4, 2026,” Trump said; that’s the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“The magnitude of the waste of public funds is beyond what the public could imagine,” Musk tweeted on Thursday, referring to US federal government spending, which will surpass $6 trillion in 2023.
Of course, Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and the owner of Twitter (aka X). Ramaswamy is a businessman and one-time Republican presidential candidate, who dropped out of the race during the primaries and threw his support behind Trump.
The initiative will also tentatively be staffed by several “small government revolutionaries with super-high IQs willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost cuts,” according to the department’s official release Thursday. It is not yet known how many workers will be hired for the project, but the positions will be unpaid, Elon Musk tweeted this week.
Neither Ramaswamy nor Musk immediately responded to Decrypt’s request for comment.
What will DOGE actually do?
DOGE’s mission is to streamline the US government by issuing reports that provide advice and guidance on reducing government regulations and spending, according to Trump.
“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. “We’re going to get the government off of you and off of your wallet,” Musk said in October at a rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
However, the quasi-department’s billionaire leaders have given divergent statements about the extent to which US federal government spending should be cut.
Musk has suggested cutting federal spending by $2 million, a third of the total US federal government budget. Meanwhile, Ramaswamy has said he would like to cut up to 75% of the US federal workforce, although The budgetary impact of such a cut is unclear.
Despite those differences, DOGE leaders appear aligned on cutting dozens of employees from the federal government and various US agencies, such as the Department of Education and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to reduce costs, according to recent public comments from Ramaswamy and Musk.
“The magnitude of the waste of public funds is beyond what the public could imagine.” Musk tweeted on Thursday, referencing U.S. federal government spending, which will surpass $6 trillion in 2023.
Musk has said that DOGE will host weekly livestreams to share updates on its progress.
Why is it called DOGE?
The fake department’s acronym, DOGE, appears to be a clever reference to the ticker of Dogecoin (DOGE), a high-market-cap meme cryptocurrency much loved by Elon Musk. That connection was reinforced by an official t-shirt sold by Trump that featured President-elect Musk and a Shiba Inu dog.
The meme, which is famous for the Shiba Inu mascot, was invented in 2013 by a pair of software engineers. Musk has said he owns a “bunch” of Dogecoin, and has routinely tweeted and talked about the currency in recent years. He even called himself the “Dogefather” in 2021 and mentioned the memecoin while hosting Saturday Night Live.
Dogecoin’s value rose with Musk’s support for Trump in the election campaign, and then skyrocketed after Trump’s victory and amid the official announcement of DOGE leadership. The coin hit a three-year high price last week and has helped boost the value of other notable meme coins as well.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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