As Elon Musk exits his position leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a growing number of experts in public administration are voicing concern that the initiative has failed to enhance government services—and may have, in fact, harmed them.
“Doge is not offering any solid claims that it has improved services in any way,” said Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “Rather, it has made the quality of some government services worse.”
Musk, currently the world’s wealthiest individual, was tapped by Donald Trump in January to oversee the administration’s efficiency efforts. Appointed as a “special government employee,” Musk was restricted from serving more than 180 days. With his tenure now over and ongoing challenges in his business empire demanding attention, Musk is stepping away—but not without making some bold claims.
Despite widespread skepticism, Musk has declared that Doge achieved $150 billion in savings. However, numerous budget analysts dispute this figure, citing a pattern of Musk making inflated and inaccurate claims. The touted savings also fall significantly short of Musk’s originally stated goal of trimming $1 trillion from government expenditures.
Public policy specialists like Moynihan argue that Musk and Doge focused more on applying a cutthroat, private-sector mindset of slashing payrolls than on actually making government work better for citizens. Rather than investing in long-term service improvements, they accuse Doge of resorting to mass layoffs and quick budget cuts.
Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, described the project as reckless. “They were the ‘department of government slash and burn’,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be an approach to dig in on places where government services could really be improved. Any improvement in government services takes time. You have to invest. You have to build it out. You have to figure out how to fix it.”
Asked whether Doge had improved any services, Gimbel laughed before replying: “No. There has clearly been a degeneration of government services.”
Indeed, both experts and everyday citizens have reported worsening conditions in several areas. Veterans’ hospitals now require longer wait times for appointments. Calls to the Internal Revenue Service take longer to be answered. Social Security offices are increasingly crowded, and the departure of many experienced workers has left less-qualified staff giving out advice on benefits.
At a White House press conference on May 1, Musk defended his tenure. “In the grand scheme of things, I think we’ve been effective. Not as effective as I’d like. I think we could be more effective,” he said. “But we’ve made progress.”
Musk admitted, however, that achieving his $1 trillion savings goal proved far more difficult than anticipated. “It’s sort of, how much pain is the cabinet and the Congress willing to take?” he said. “It can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints.”
Despite Musk’s claims of progress, the White House declined to answer questions from the Guardian about deteriorating services or to offer examples of improved outcomes due to Doge’s efforts.
Gimbel warned that conditions are likely to worsen as the full impact of Doge’s job cuts plays out in the coming months. “Things will definitely get worse,” she said, pointing to the administration’s ongoing efforts to eliminate 80,000 positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs as just one example.
While Trump and Musk have frequently alleged widespread waste and fraud across government agencies, Gimbel said there’s a clear difference between targeted reform and indiscriminate cutting. “There is waste, and you can go after it,” she said. “People who have been in government know where those places are. There is a ton of tech that needs modernizing. Doge doesn’t seem interested in that. There’s a lot of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling. Doge doesn’t seem interested in that either. What you have is a relatively expensive exercise in slash-and-burn that sometime in the future will cost a lot to fix.”
Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit focused on government effectiveness, also expressed alarm. He likened Doge’s approach unfavorably to the strategies of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, known for cost-cutting. “Jack Welch would be appalled by the approach that Doge has taken,” Stier said. “It’s not actually about cost-cutting. It’s about capability destroyed. Jack Welch would never, ever have fired people without having a real understanding about the way the organization worked and about the qualities of people who were being fired. This is an arbitrary exercise that has moved out employees who are often by far the most qualified rather than the least qualified.”
Stier dismissed Trump’s portrayal of Doge as a model of efficient reform. “That’s just not the case,” he said. “It’s hard to offer any rational basis for the decisions that are being made. There certainly aren’t any improvements that the American public will see.”
He warned of deeper consequences. “It’s burning down government capability,” he said. “It’s unquestionably clear that they are firing people willy-nilly and are disrupting government services without any understanding of the consequences or concern about the consequences. It’s a break-it-is-to-fix-it mentality. It isn’t a mentality that predominates in Silicon Valley. It’s sheer reckless behavior in the public sector because real people get hurt.”
Musk’s $150 billion savings figure, according to Stier, ignores the true costs of the upheaval. His organization estimates that Doge’s moves—through layoffs, rehirings, severance packages, paid leave, and lost productivity for over 100,000 workers—will ultimately cost taxpayers $135 billion in the current fiscal year. The broader public’s increased wait times and reduced service quality should also be factored in, experts argue.
Moynihan asserted that Musk’s entire philosophy was flawed. “His vision is that there is no way that government employees can produce anything of value,” Moynihan said. “So the idea of tools that makes government services better is completely alien to the Musk mindset.”
He added, “I think he believes that nothing public employees do has any real value, that they are not capable employees and therefore cutting them will do no harm. It’s a vision that doesn’t understand what public services are, why they exist and how they benefit people.”
Moynihan was especially critical of Musk for dismantling key initiatives designed to modernize government services, including gutting efforts to use technology more effectively and ending the Direct File program, which allowed citizens to file their taxes simply and at no cost.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said Doge’s budget slashing would deeply harm workers. She highlighted cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency that conducts crucial research to ensure the safety of firefighters’ equipment. “There’s this notion that Doge is just cutting line items on a spreadsheet. It’s hurting real lives and real people,” Shuler said. “They’ve treated federal workers with blatant disregard and have been nothing short of dehumanizing and insulting toward them.”
Gimbel also cautioned about future public health risks tied to Doge’s actions. “Part of what government does is mitigate risk,” she explained. “Take food safety. Government inspectors decrease the risk that you will get listeria or salmonella. But when they reduce the number of food inspectors, will you get listeria or salmonella tomorrow? No. Will it probably increase the chances of people getting listeria and salmonella over the next five years? Yes.”
In the end, while Musk and Trump have promoted Doge as a bold effort to streamline government, many experts see it as a destructive campaign that has caused real damage with few, if any, public benefits.