DOGE Gets its Wings Clipped

Almost every time that I have written about Shadow President Elon Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service, I have complained that Musk and his minions were using a meat cleaver where a scalpel would be more appropriate. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump apparently came to the same conclusion yesterday, posting on his Truth Social social media platform that, going forward, cuts to the federal workforce would be made with a scalpel rather than a "hatchet". This may well be the first step toward restraining Musk and DOGE.

Trump is not giving up on DOGE just yet, saying that "I think they’ve done an amazing job." But it is clear that Trump has changed his opinion about DOGE's slash-and-burn methods. DOGE's indiscriminate firings have been conducted with no regard for who was actually being let go or the particular skills and capabilities of those individuals. As a result, DOGE has often had to backtrack and try to rehire employees who had just been fired. This included employees tasked with overseeing the safety of nuclear weapons and combating avian flu. In both cases, DOGE only realized what it had done after the employees had been dismissed. This led to frantic efforts to locate the former employees and try to coax them back to their jobs.

Now Trump is favoring a more cautious approach. After meeting with his cabinet secretaries, Trump told reporters that "I want the cabinet members to keep good people...I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut." He went on to say, "keep all the people you want, everybody that you need." On Truth Social, Trump "truthed", "As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go." Trump still wants to see the workforce cut, however, calling it a "very necessary job." He plans to hold a meeting every two weeks to check on progress.

Trump still holds the view that there is considerable waste, fraud, or abuse in the workforce, though DOGE has not provided any evidence of this. Trump suggested that there may be employees on the payroll who are actually dead and others who don't do any work. Again, however, Trump's claims have not been supported with examples. Given the willingness of Musk and DOGE to toss out alleged findings fairly cavalierly, one would think that they would be quick to publicize the existence of any dead employees who were being paid. But, so far, nada.

Trump and Musk, using DOGE to provide shock troops, launched a blitzkrieg against federal government departments. With absolutely no regard for federal rules and regulations, or even federal law, they eliminated hundreds of thousands of positions. However, they have faced setbacks on multiple fronts. Courts have ruled against both individual firings, for instance returning Gwynne Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board, and larger dismissals. A federal judge ruled that the large-scale firing of probationary employees was illegal. Even the Supreme Court ruled that foreign aid commitments must be honored, requiring payments that DOGE had stopped to be resumed. Politically, Musk and DOGE have been very unpopular. Polls show Americans oppose Musk and DOGE's dismantling of the government by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio. Republican members of Congress have faced so much pushback at public meetings that they have been advised to stop holding them. This has resulted in pressure from elected Republicans as well as some of Trump's cabinet secretaries for DOGE to slow things down.

DOGE's mistakes and political opposition have somewhat undermined its authority. But, there is another issue involved that I have touched on before. One of Musk's primary goals was to centralize control of the government under DOGE. The email server he established in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was to be utilized as a central hub of communications to the entire federal workforce. Dismissals of personnel have been conducted under the umbrella of OPM, which DOGE staff has taken over. But, legally, that is not how the government is constructed. OPM is just one agency among several. It has no authority over others. This was, in fact, the point made by the judge who ruled that the dismissal of probationary employees was not lawful. They were fired by OPM, something the judge said OPM had no authority to do other than in the case of OPM's own employees. As a result, DOGE has been going through something of a pantomime in which attempts are made to create the appearance that departments and agencies are taking action while DOGE simply offers advice. At the same time, the heads of these organizations have little to no input into what is happening. One result is a series of contradictory behaviors in which government lawyers tell courts that Musk has no authority over DOGE while Trump tells the nation that Musk is the head of DOGE or, similarly, government lawyers struggle to convince courts that OPM only issued guidance and didn't actually fire anyone. The more a fissure opens between what Trump, Musk, and DOGE want to do — and to an extent have been doing — and what is legally allowable, the more it weakens DOGE. This growing gap between the de facto and de jure operation of the government is being exploited by DOGE opponents to reclaim power from the group.

The crucial question is whether Musk will accept having his wings clipped. As I have described in previous blog posts, Musk has attempted to gain control of the federal workforce, taken over government payment systems, and seized much of the government's data. He has also assumed control of the government's real estate through DOGE's dominance of the Government Services Administration. Arguably, Musk has more control of the government than Trump. Will there come a time when Trump asks Musk to take a step back and Musk refuses? Or will Musk simply run a shadow government behind a legal, but toothless, facade? In the best case, Musk will accept new limits to his authority and adhere to his advisory role, but I am skeptical this is the likely outcome.