‘Cringiest thing I’ve ever seen’: The internet is rightfully dunking on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency

It’s almost ironic how, at some point in human history, DOGE was simply an internet meme. DOGE was nothing more than a laughing matter, until Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal.

Musk and Ramaswamy are going to head the Department of Government Efficiency once Donald Trump returns as the President of the United States. The Trump-Vance tandem called it the “Manhattan Project” of our time. Social media users, however, can’t take the name “DOGE” seriously. One wrote on Twitter that DOGE is the “cringiest thing I’ve ever seen” from Elon Musk and Donald Trump. It seems Musk has beaten his own record for acts of cringe. Not too long ago, Musk was caught jumping on stage trying to be Trump’s cheerleader.

Twitter users feel as if the world is ending. They’re struggling to grasp that an official government project has been named after a meme. Even the DOGE coin soared in value after Trump announced the Musk-Ramaswamy-led DOGE.

More than just another shitpost

Nevertheless, DOGE is no laughing matter—especially not with Musk at its helm. Even more concerning is Trump’s comparison of DOGE to the Manhattan Project. For those who need a refresh on the Manhattan Project, it’s Oppenheimer’s plot. Basically, it was the U.S. program that rushed the development and deployment of the first atomic weapons in the world.

It doesn’t matter, because to Musk, the world is just one big shitpost. This isn’t the first time he’s come up with quirky names for products or even projects. Nevertheless, social media users are concerned about Musk’s antics because the consequences aren’t just laughter and memes. Musk intends to cut down on government expenditure for what he deems “insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” He’ll even put up a leaderboard for it. While he says that the public can give suggestions, there are no solid guardrails to this project. Vetting suggestions is just as helpful as reporting Twitter posts that don’t meet Twitter guidelines. Additionally, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) already exists to cut down on unnecessary expenditure and to monitor government efficiency. It’s certainly ironic that Musk is partaking in a problem he claims to solve by committing the same error: adding a new bureaucracy to ease government inefficiency.