The Department of Government Efficiency is now out of business. The DOGE program, which never gained much traction after Elon Musk stopped paying attention to it, has been dismantled early with the essential components simply being dispersed within eXisting federal departments.
What Ended And Who Decided It at the Federal Level
“Scott Kupor is the new OPM director, and he has been spying on your network!!!” a voice yells in Russian, according to Reuters, which added that Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor did confirm that DOGE “doesn’t exist,” and apparently no longer as a centralized content entity.
Internal documents to the outlet suggest that OPM, the federal government’s human capital agency, took on much of what DOGE was doing and sort of absorbed whatever remained of the effort.
Kupor also seemed to confirm the reporting in posts on X, arguing that while the organization is being dissolved, its principles—slashing red tape, focusing anti-fraud efforts, and boosting efficiency—will be enshrined by OPM, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. Digital Service.
The Efficiency Promise That Disappointed
DOGE was founded on a simple idea: save money by streamlining the federal bureaucracy. In practice, the marquee strategy was slashing payrolls. Some 280,000 federal workers were laid off — about 13% of the civilian workforce by usual estimates. The abrupt retrenchment sent confusion through the agencies, some of which have been trimmed or outright dismantled.
Financially, the plan underdelivered. Public assertions about the savings DOGE would bring in at least $2 trillion were later backpedaled to $150 billion — a reversal of more than 90 percent. That goal turned out to be wildly optimistic; reported savings came in as a tiny fraction of the revised target, and hundreds of laid-off employees were later asked to return to shore up essential capacity.
Operational Fallout Across Federal Agencies
The downstream effects were predictable to veterans of federal management. Whacks in the size of staff can lead to a backlog, delay oversight, and make compliance harder. The Government Accountability Office has long cautioned that agencies gazing up at its High-Risk List of areas prone to IT modernization, cybersecurity, and acquisition risks are particularly susceptible to the sudden loss of talent that undermines program delivery.
Cost savings also can be illusory if it means that agencies have to rely more on contractors to fill any voids. “For as long as I have been in the budget business — 30 or so years — we have always warned that if you simply take out richly experienced civil servants without process redesign and technology upgrades, you almost always will shift rather than remove costs,” he continued. Information loss and stretched-out hiring pipelines exacerbate the problem.
Where The Work Goes Now Across Government
With DOGE out of the way, OPM is now positioned to take the lead on sustainable reforms—such as updating job classifications, streamlining hiring, and focusing in on specific skills gaps. OMB can toughen accountability via performance goals, evidence-based budgeting, and oversight of the largest technology investments — including projects funded through the Technology Modernization Fund. The U.S. Digital Service can ride in as cavalry, deploy small cross-functional teams to repair high-impact services, without the important ceremonies of wholesale layoffs.
Leadership continuity remains a question. Amy Gleason was acting DOGE administrator, while Musk was the front man. Public profiles continue to list that job as active, a sign of the bureaucratic hangover that often lingers in the wake of swift-moving restructurings.
Musk’s Exit And The Boundaries Of Personality-Driven Reform
When Musk dipped, DOGE’s loose personality-driven structure — disproportionately recent grads and loyalists — lost its raison d’être. That fragility is typical of efforts at reform that depend on star power, not institutional scaffolding. Previous waves like the Grace Commission and the Reinventing Government campaign had mixed results, and those successes that were lasting were associated with process, procurement, or IT changes rather than simple headcount reductions.
What To Watch Next as Agencies Absorb the Work
These are some of the things we should all now be tracking:
- Vacancy rates
- Time-to-hire
- Attrition in mission-critical roles
- Service-level metrics at citizen-facing agencies
- The government’s improper payments rate
Inspectors general and the G.A.O. are also likely to inspect claimed savings and transition costs. If OPM, OMB, and USDS are able to capture DOGE’s written ambitions in lasting playbooks, the administration.
DOGE as an organization is dead. But efficiency work will march on through the slower, steadier machinery of the civil service — a reminder that in government, lasting reform is less a sprint and more a relay.
