Exclusive-DOGE ‘doesn’t exist’ with eight months left on its charter

By Courtney Rozen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Effectiveness has been disbanded eight months into his term, ending an initiative launched with great fanfare as a symbol of Trump’s pledge to shrink the size of government but which critics say has produced few measurable savings.

“It doesn’t exist,” Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told Reuters earlier this month when asked about the status of DOGE.

It is no longer a “centralized entity,” Kupor added, in the Trump administration’s first public comments on the end of DOGE.‌

The agency, created in January, made dramatic inroads into Washington during the early months of Trump’s second term to rapidly shrink federal agencies, reduce their budgets or reorient their work toward Trump’s priorities. OPM, the federal government’s human resources office, has since “taken over many functions from DOGE,” according to Kupor and documents reviewed by Reuters.

At least two prominent DOGE employees are now involved in the National Design Studio, a new body created by an executive order signed by Trump in August. This organization is led by Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, and Trump’s order directed him to beautify government websites.

Gebbia was part of billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE team while DOGE employee Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls,” encouraged followers of his X account to apply to join.

DOGE’s demise stands in stark contrast to efforts across the government for months to draw attention to it, with Trump, his advisers and his cabinet secretaries posting about it on social media.⁠ Musk, who initially led DOGE, regularly touted its work on his X‌ platform and at one point brandished a chainsaw to announce his efforts to cut government jobs.

“It’s the chainsaw of bureaucracy,” Musk said, holding the tool above his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, in February.

DOGE claimed to have cut tens of billions of dollars in spending, but it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify because the unit did not provide a detailed public accounting of its work.

“President Trump was given a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and he continues to actively uphold that commitment,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in an email to Reuters.

TRUMP OFFICIALS REPORTED DOGE’S DECESSION

Trump administration officials have not openly declared that DOGE no longer exists, even after Musk’s public feud with Trump in May. Musk has since left Washington.

Trump and his team have nevertheless publicly announced its demise since this summer, even though the US president signed an executive order earlier in his term decreeing that DOGE would last until July 2026.

In his statements to journalists, Trump “often speaks of DOGE in the past tense. Acting DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason, whose background is in health technology, officially became an advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy in March, according to a court filing, in addition to her role at DOGE. His public statements have largely focused on his role at HHS.

Republican-led states, including Idaho and Florida, are creating local entities similar to DOGE.

A government-wide hiring freeze – another feature of DOGE – is also over, Kupor said.

On his first day in office, Trump barred federal agencies from hiring new employees, except for positions his team deemed necessary to enforce immigration laws and protect public safety. He then said DOGE officials must approve any further exceptions, adding that agencies should hire “no more than one employee for every four” who leave.

“There is no longer a reduction target,” Kupor said.

FORMER DOGE EMPLOYEES MOVE TO NEW ROLES

DOGE staff have also taken on other roles in administration. Most prominent is Gebbia, who Trump tasked with improving the “visual presentation” of government websites.

So far, his design studio has launched websites to recruit law enforcement officers to patrol Washington, D.​C., and advertise the president’s drug pricing program. Gebbia declined an interview with Reuters through a spokesperson.

Zachary Terrell, a DOGE team member with access to government health systems at the start of Trump’s second term, is now chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services. Rachel Riley, who had the same access according to court documents, is now chief of the Office of Naval Research, according to the office’s website.

Jeremy Lewin, who helped Musk and the Trump administration dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, now oversees foreign aid at the State Department, according to the agency’s website.

Musk, shortly after Trump’s election, said he had a mandate to “remove the mountain” of government regulations. He made rolling back government regulations and overhauling government with AI two key tenets of DOGE, in addition to eliminating federal government jobs.

The administration is still working to reduce regulations. The White House budget office commissioned Scott Langmack, who was the DOGE representative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to create custom AI applications to sift through U.S. regulations and determine which ones to eliminate, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, Musk has reappeared in Washington. This week, he attended a White House dinner “for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”

(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; editing by Chris Sanders and Deepa Babington)