Shortly after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, he announced, with great fanfare, that billionaire Elon Musk and professional troll Vivek Ramaswamy were being put in charge of a "government efficiency" program. Despite all the hype, there were immediate signs that this effort may not be as serious as Musk and Ramaswamy implied with their relentless chest-beating about "cuts" and "deleting" entire agencies. The name — Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — sounds super-official, but it's just a reference to a dumb meme that Musk is obsessed with, despite being about four decades too old for it.
More importantly, it's not a real department. It's a "presidential advisory committee," which may sound like a real thing but comes with no salary and no real power. These committees have a long history of being used to create the appearance of "doing something" while doing nothing — Joe Biden killed the judicial reform debate with this tactic. Of course, Trump, being an authoritarian who loathes democracy, loves using unofficial advisers and outside powers. It's reasonable to worry that DOGE will have more power than such committees usually have. However, Musk's behavior on his X platform (formerly Twitter) is a strong sign that he, at least, is starting to worry that DOGE will be toothless.
