Elon Musk leaves legacy of self-destruction at DOGE
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Photo illustration: Maura Losch/Axios. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Elon Musk arrived in Washington as the most powerful political outsider ever, brimming with Silicon Valley swagger and bipartisan buy-in for his goal of streamlining the federal government.
- He's leaving with his reputation wounded, relationships severed, companies in crisis, fortune diminished — and little to show for DOGE but chaos and contested savings.
Why it matters: Musk may not have achieved his audacious goal of cutting $2 trillion from America's debt, but the disruption he unleashed inside the federal government — for better or for worse — will reverberate for decades.
Zoom in: Musk has publicly acknowledged the enormous toll that DOGE — which he's characterized as a patriotic, existential project — has taken on his private life.
- He's still beloved by President Trump, but his favorability ratings have plummeted amid scrutiny of DOGE's mass layoffs, sweeping program cuts, and unprecedented access to Americans' personal data.
- For Wisconsin's Supreme Court election this month, Democrats painted Musk — who poured $25 million into the race — as a corrupt, unelected oligarch with his eyes set on dismantling Social Security. The message stuck, and Musk's GOP-backed candidate lost.
By the numbers: Tesla, battered by boycotts, protests and even firebombings, saw its net income plunge 71% in the first quarter — triggering Musk's decision this week to scale back his involvement in DOGE.
- Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, celebrated the end of "this dark chapter," but warned: "The brand damage caused by Musk in the White House/DOGE over the past few months will not go away."
- Musk's net worth has declined by a staggering $122 billion this year — nearly matching the $160 billion in government savings claimed by DOGE, which budget experts believe is wildly inflated.
- Musk, who bankrolled Trump's campaign to the tune of $288 million, still remains the world's richest man.
Zoom out: Inside the government, Musk's slash-and-burn campaign has fundamentally reshaped how federal agencies operate — and in some cases, whether they operate at all.
- DOGE spent one of its first weekends "feeding USAID into the wood chipper," gutting an agency that millions of people around the world rely on for food, water, shelter, disease surveillance and disaster relief.
- Musk's team then tried to "delete" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a financial watchdog created after the Great Recession to protect people from being ripped off by banks and other institutions.
- His DOGE team has since gone agency by agency, infiltrating sensitive IT networks — including the Treasury Department's centralized payments system — in the name of rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse."
In some cases, DOGE has exposed seemingly frivolous examples of government spending, like a $360,000 grant to reduce social discrimination of recyclers in Bolivia.
- The administration's aggressive marketing of these findings has helped reinforce the widely held view that Washington is bloated, inefficient and overdue for reform.
- But the DOGE team's credibility has repeatedly been undermined by mistakes, duplications and false assumptions uploaded — then quietly deleted — on its online "wall of receipts."
- Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — one of several Cabinet officials to clash with Musk — accused the billionaire of overpromising and under-delivering in a West Wing shouting match last week.
What they're saying: "DOGE's verified savings have been less than 1/10 of 1% of federal spending," says Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow and budget expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute.
- "There have been embarrassing accounting errors, lots of public statements that turned out to be false or misleading, or actions slapped back by the courts."
Between the lines: Republicans have celebrated as DOGE has slashed wasteful contracts, canceled leases and fired unproductive employees. But its cuts to the IRS threaten to reverse any progress made on reducing the deficit.
- "The spending savings are so small that they will be undoubtedly overwhelmed by the significant tax revenue losses which result from gutting IRS tax enforcement," Riedl tells Axios.
- "It makes a mockery of claims that DOGE is really just about cutting deficits."
The bottom line: Musk will remain a force in American politics long after his DOGE days are over, especially with his acolytes strategically installed in high-profile positions throughout the federal government.
- "I can't speak more highly about any individual," Trump told reporters Wednesday, heaping praise on his billionaire adviser and top donor.
- "He was treated very unfairly by — I guess you'd call it the public, some of the public," Trump added. "He loves the country. He doesn't need to do this."
