Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy presented the concept of creating a Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), the goal of which is a large-scale reduction of the government apparatus from “extra” employees, but more importantly, the abolition of thousands of outdated regulations and, accordingly, simplification of regulation .
Image Source: Elon Musk/X
According to The Verge, Musk and Ramaswamy’s proposal is to determine the minimum number of employees and functions necessary for each federal agency to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. They also intend to review and eliminate many regulations that they say are slowing down the work of government agencies.
Despite the fact that DOGE currently exists only on paper, supporters of Donald Trump are actively discussing this idea. However, many believe that this may simply be a symbolic initiative designed to create the illusion of Musk’s official role in the new administration.
While the new department’s plans are ambitious, they are not new—similar ideas about wholesale deregulation have been promoted in conservative circles for decades. Some of these initiatives were already discussed in the first Trump administration. For example, at the end of his term, he signed an executive order known as Schedule F, which stripped certain federal jobs of protection from layoffs. At the time, this move was seen as a way to “cleanse” federal agencies of those who disagreed with the president’s policies, but it was never implemented.
Trump supporters, including his ally J.D. Vance, also support the idea of weakening the federal bureaucracy. In a 2021 interview, Vance proposed firing all mid-level bureaucrats and replacing them with “our own people.”
In addition, Musk and Ramaswamy mention the recent landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which abolished the Chevron doctrine. This doctrine allowed federal agencies to interpret laws if their text was ambiguous. Now, Musk and his allies say, the president has a unique opportunity to reduce the powers of these agencies, concentrating power in the hands of the administration.
The Verge notes that Musk’s ideas about DOGE have many similarities with the concept of abolishing the civil service, first put forward by neoreactionary philosopher Curtis Yarvin in 2012. Yarvin, who advocates a monarchy and the abolition of liberal democracy, has proposed a radical “reset” of the government by firing all government employees.
Despite Yarvin’s claims that he has no influence on Musk and other members of the Trump team, his ideas resonate among conservative circles. Musk himself promotes DOGE under the slogans of economy and efficiency, but many see it as an attempt to remove regulatory oversight from Tesla and SpaceX, which regularly face accusations of violating safety rules.
Experts say DOGE appears to be not just a cost-cutting tool, but a mechanism for concentrating power and weakening checks and balances. The only question is whether this initiative will become a real reform or will remain a political project aimed at attracting attention.