The White House has vowed that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will continue its cost-cutting efforts after the initiative’s founder, Elon Musk, formally completed his temporary government term of service on Friday.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote in an X post earlier this week. The tech entrepreneur added that the DOGE mission “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
During Thursday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked whether a replacement DOGE chief will be named to continue Musk’s work.
“The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president’s cabinet and the president himself, who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government,” Leavitt told reporters.
“The entire Cabinet understands the need to cut government waste, fraud and abuse,” she added. “And each Cabinet secretary at their respective agencies is committed to that. That’s why they were working hand in hand with Elon Musk. And they’ll continue to work with their respective DOGE employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies. So surely the mission of DOGE will continue, and many DOGE employees are now political appointees and employees of our government.”
Musk had been leading the first-of-it’s-kind initiative, which was tasked with cutting $2 trillion in waste, fraud and abuse, from the federal budget and bureaucracy. DOGE’s efforts to cut waste has led to roughly $175 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment cuts, in addition to other steps to eliminate costs, according to a May 26 update from the DOGE website.
A senior White House official told Fox News that DOGE is now part of the “DNA” of the federal government and will be continuing unabated.
“The DOGE employees at their respective agency or department will be reporting to and executing the agenda of the president through the leadership of each agency or department head,” the official said.
