The early days of Elon Musk's time at the Department of Government Efficiency were defined by big, flashy actions, promises of massive cuts, and dubious legality. As his 130-day cutoff as a limited government employee approaches, it seems he'll be leaving with a thud. On top of significantly cutting the expected “savings” that his pseudo-agency will produce, other signature policies like the “5 things” email that went out at the start of DOGE's operation have fallen entirely by the wayside, according to the Washington Post.
Musk and his team of large toddlers at DOGE made waves back in February when they sent an email with the subject line “What did you do last week?” to every government employee, demanding they list five accomplishments that had been made over the previous week or face termination for failing to respond. That never came to fruition and, according to the Washington Post, was never even a real threat. Almost immediately, the Office of Personnel Management told agencies the initiative was voluntary and noncompliance would not result in resignation. The agency also never did anything with the emails it received.
As tends to happen with feckless policies, people started ignoring the emails altogether. Per the Post, some agencies still require responses to the emails, which have apparently continued months later, but others have stopped mandating responses and don't check which employees have replied or not. And, most notably, there does not appear to have been any consequences for the mix of responses (or non-responses).
DOGE has become a microcosm of how most Musk-led operations tend to go. Not only did it take weeks for the agency to reveal who was allegedly at the helm, but the lack of any real leadership has resulted in chaos basically every step of the way. The department has run on the Silicon Valley standard of “move fast and break things,” and has definitely accomplished the latter, resulting in a litany of legal challenges along the way. Meanwhile, Musk's big pledge of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending has been revised down to $1 trillion and now $150 billion—all while the cuts that have been made have failed to make any actual dent in the deficit. A classic Muskian “over promise and under deliver” move.
Musk's exit might serve his interests, at least as it relates to his association with the federal government. Per the Washington Post, people close to him say he's sick of getting attacked for his role at DOGE. Plus, he clearly would like to distance himself from the Trump tariff regime and has been attacking some of the people behind the policy. So the timing of his departure seems right.
Assuming Musk actually does ditch DOGE (this administration has not been big on following federal laws, after all), he'll be leaving his new mess for an old one. Tesla is staring down a potential crisis, in no small part because of how badly Musk's behavior has damaged the brand.
The company's stock is already showing some negative markers heading into an earnings call on Tuesday, and Bloomberg reports that even the bulls are starting to sound the alarm. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives called for Musk to leave DOGE and return to Tesla, which he believes is facing a “code red” moment as Tesla sales slump and production of cheaper models has hit snags. Currently, Tesla's biggest promises are a network of robotaxis and a humanoid robot, both of which are dubious at best. Tuesday will show just how much stomach investors have for Musk's bad press and how much faith they're willing to place in the CEO's standard practice of making a big promise years in the future to keep the shell game going.
