What DOGE actually is now
When President Trump finally issued his executive order formalizing the Department of Government Efficiency, its scope—or lack thereof—took Washington by surprise. While Elon Musk and now-departed DOGE co-founder Vivek Ramaswamy once promised a campaign to “liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy” and cut a mind-blowing $2 trillion from the budget, in its place was a mission of … “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” After much speculation about what kind of office DOGE would actually be, its official form turned out to be a retread rather than some kind of thrilling novelty. Trump’s EO conjured it into being by simply rechristening a small existing agency—the U.S. Digital Service, founded to modernize and coordinate technology across government—as the “U.S. DOGE Service.” If you take a closer look, the two bodies’ missions aren’t as dissimilar as one might think—and some of the USDS’ creators think that even this pared-down DOGE could have a big impact of its own, especially if Musk uses its access to federal systems to implement the kind of ruthless cost-cutting practices he’s used in the private sector.
What DOGE actually is now