Elon Musk's role as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, known as 'DOGE' for short, has revolved around the cutting of what he deems to be 'wasteful' federal spending, but a new executive order signed by US President Donald Trump has increased the length at which DOGE's power extends.
The Department of Government Efficiency was almost purpose-built with Musk at its help, as he immediately pledged a eye-watering $2,000,000,000,000 in cuts from governmental spending.
Among the list of targets include key government departments like Education, Health, Defense, and USAID, and recent actions saw Musk send a government-wide email threatening the jobs of over 100,000 federal workers.
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While experts have questioned claims that DOGE has managed to save $65 billion so far, President Trump has used his power to increase the Department's control over wider governmental spending with a new executive order, as reported by The Guardian.
"This order commences a transformation in Federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans," the change details, "to ensure Government spending is transparent and Government employees are accountable to the American public."
What this new executive order requires is that all government departments record their payments and spending within a centralized system that also makes them 'justify' the need for the money to be spent. This information will then be shared and analyzed by DOGE, and potentially even shared with the public.
As a result, Musk and DOGE have gained significantly more power to uproot and block spending across the federal space, allowing them to apply their reductions and locate 'waste' and 'inefficiencies' as they happen.
President Trump has outlined that his administration "has to" cut down the overall size of the government, adding: "We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job."
That's likely the reasoning behind the aforementioned emails, as they required recipients to state everything that they had done in their job within the last week, essentially testing that they're actually 'working' to a sufficient standard.
Trump has also echoed his belief that money is being wasted in other key executive orders, most notably in halting production of the California high speed rail project which has had over $11 billion already invested in the last decade.
Things aren't going entirely smoothly within the Department of Government Efficiency though, as Musk has recently had to deal with an unforced mass resignation, as 20 employees all signed a letter addressing their disapproval of the actions they were asked to undertake as part of DOGE.