Instead, the agency has essentially disbanded, Reuters reported Sunday (Nov. 23), bringing a close to a program that was designed to shrink the size of government, but which drew criticism that it provided little in the way of savings.
“That doesn’t exist,” Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor told Reuters recently when asked about DOGE’s status.
Kupor added that DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity,” the Reuters report said, noting this was the first public comment from the Trump administration on the department’s end.
DOGE, established in January with a mandate to operate until July 2026, launched with a great deal of fanfare, as President Donald Trump pushed to reduce the size of federal agencies and their budgets. The OPM, the federal government’s human resources arm, has since taken over many of DOGE’s duties, according to Kupor and documents seen by Reuters.
And while DOGE is quietly fading, the government initially went to great lengths to publicize its work, Reuters added. For example, Elon Musk, who was for a time in charge of the agency, routinely posted about its work on his X platform. At one point, the billionaire brandished a chainsaw to advertise his work to slash government jobs.
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“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk said, holding the tool above his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland in February.
As noted here in October, the first nine months of this year saw a little under 300,000 job cuts in the government sector, most of which were the result of DOGE’s efforts.
But while DOGE claimed to have cut tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, Reuters said it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify that, as the department did not provide detailed public accounting of its work.
“President Trump was given a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government, and he continues to actively deliver on that commitment,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in an email to Reuters.
And while DOGE may be winding down, at least one of its early efforts continues to play out. The department had pushed to close down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and while that agency still exists, its budget has been reduced and White House officials have indicated its days could be numbered.
