‘It’s not a real department’: LOL, Elon Musk’s DOGE won’t get $2 trillion after all

Elon Musk backtracked on his claim that his fake government department, the Department of Government Efficient (DOGE), will achieve $2 trillion in budget cuts.

Following his generous contributions to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the president-elect named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy the co-heads of DOGE. The only problem is that a new government department cannot be created without an act of Congress. Even though it’s not even part of the government and its moniker is a reference to a meme, Musk immediately began acting as if DOGE were a serious department. He promised that the department would cut the U.S. federal budget by up to $2 trillion and dramatically reduce government waste. His promises raised concern as he proposed stripping government regulations and instigating mass layoffs, potentially disrupting government services.

Of course, even while floating plans to randomly fire government workers based on their social security numbers, Musk has been seeking to hire more people to work in DOGE. Additionally, a whole House Committee was formed to work in conjunction with the fake department. Despite spending more time and resources on DOGE, Musk has now started scaling back on its budget cut goal.

DOGE won’t get $2 trillion in budget cuts after all

Musk has now walked back his promise to procure $2 trillion in budget cuts through DOGE. In an interview with political strategist Mark Penn, Musk noticeably changed his tune about the department, stating that it would “try” to attain $2 trillion in cuts but admitting that would be the “best-case outcome.” He then suggested aiming for just half of his previous goal, stating, “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting 1 [trillion].” Musk quickly reiterated that DOGE would still have “an epic outcome” if it “can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion.”

He also avoided listing any specific areas he had identified where cuts would be successful. Instead, he vaguely claimed there were potential cuts everywhere and that the government is a “very target-rich environment for saving money.” While Musk appeared optimistic about DOGE, the interview was a far cry from his statements at a Trump rally where he claimed the department would cut the budget by “at least” $2 trillion.

While $1 trillion is still quite a lot, the problem is that Musk is retracting his promises. A few short months ago, he confidently claimed that DOGE would cut the budget by $2 trillion. However, now he’s cut that number by a whopping $1 trillion, and nothing is stopping him from slowly lowering that number as well. It’s not like this is a matter of a few dollars. The man entrusted to run DOGE just casually admitted his estimates were off by an astounding $1 trillion, which certainly seems to align with suspicions that this man, who has never worked in government before, does not know what he’s doing. Not everyone was surprised by Musk scaling back on his promise, though. One user suggested this is to be expected “Because it’s not a real department.” Others suggested the whole department was a scam and compared Musk’s false promises to Trump’s lies about lowering grocery prices.

While Musk is breaking his promise, lowering his expectations could be positive. It may suggest that he is starting to understand and get realistic about budget cuts, which means he may not as dramatically restructure the government. Still, $1 trillion is a high enough number that mass layoffs aren’t off the table. Only time will tell if this is a sign of Musk becoming realistic about his role or if his fake department will become even more of a joke as it goes back on its promises.