August 12, 2025 • 23 mins
Elon Musk left Washington and his “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative with a highly controversial and, many would say, disappointing track record. For followers of President Donald Trump and the idea of slashing what he’s claimed is out-of-control government spending, Musk’s self-reported $199 billion in savings (which cannot be independently confirmed) is a far cry from the $2 trillion the Tesla CEO promised. As far as Musk’s detractors are concerned, his cuts—often executed in haphazard fashion as his twenty-something minions unceremoniously fired long-serving federal employees—have not only disrupted how the government operates on a fundamental level, but also triggered dramatic downstream consequences, many irreversible, both domestically and across the globe.
In this episode of Elon, Inc., Max Chafkin sits down with Wired magazine senior writer Makena Kelly to discuss the legacy Musk leaves behind in Washington. How do you make sense of the hundreds of thousands or people estimated to have already died in Africa and elsewhere because of Musk’s gleeful dismantling of USAID? Or how the supposed savings of “DOGE” compare to the $3.1 trillion recently tacked on to America’s $37 trillion national debt by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”? And what are the consequences for the country now that Musk has upended the lives and morale of those federal workers who remain, many of whom still work under the shadow of more firings?
For Kelly, Musk’s lasting legacy will be one of cultural shakeup: Many of the people he and Trump have placed in positions of power say they think the federal government should be run more like a tech startup than a traditional bureaucracy. And even though he’s physically absent, they still don’t want to fall out of favor with the world’s richest man. Finally, Kelly outlines what she says we can expect from “DOGE 2.0.”
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let me tell you we have a new star. A
star is born Elan mars Jusan Kennemy.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are out
pay in full post.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We were meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm very disappointed in Elan. I've helped Elan a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Hey, David Papatoapple's here, hosts of E Laning, and this
week we're going to roll out another installment of our
Summer Jealousy series. This time we have co host Max
Chafkin interviewing wire reporter and friend of pod McKenna Kelly
about her eight reporting on all things Doge, past, present
and future. So, by the way, I'll just note that
this conversation was recorded before Edward Korstein, the Doge guy
(01:10):
known as Big Balls, was attacked in a carjacking in Washington, DC,
and before President Donald Trump responded to that incident by
threatening and then actually ordering the federal government to take
over the DC police. Okay, enough for me, enjoy the interview.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
We're joined now by McKenna Kelly, who is a friend
of the show but also a senior writer at Wired.
She covers tech in politics, and listeners will know her
because for the past six months or so, McKenna has
been covering DOGE very closely, and we've talked her.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Before we talked to her, I think.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It was what in the beginning of the year about
this kind of crazy effort by Elon Musk to bring
these technologists into the government. But a lot's changed since then,
and we wanted to bring McKenna back on the podcast
to talk about what happened, what the legacy of DOGE
has been, and what comes next.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
McKenna, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it's great to be back, all right.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because,
you know, the Trump administration, like, there's this thing where
it's a reality show. Every day there's a new thing,
and and I think for a lot of people, DOGE
has sort of receded into the background, but this stuff
has been hugely consequential.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And I want to kind of take stock of it.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
So just to start of all that's happened, big balls
of it, all the Elon Musk, all all the craziness.
Like what do you see as like the top line
consequence of like all of the headlines around DOGE over
the last six months or so.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, So, I mean looking at what the last few
months have brought from DOGE and Elon, and I think
even now with Elon out at the picture and leaving government,
I still feel like Doge has a lasting impression. And
I feel as if that big picture impression that we
can see across all agencies, across so many parts of
(03:02):
government is that it's being more run like a private
business than you know, what the government used to be
prior to this, and that comes with a lot of
different consequences and ramifications when it comes to hiring, staffing, contracting,
just a variety of things that the government does every
day being done in a fundamentally different way.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
How do you evaluate the claims that Musk and others
in the Trump administration have made. So I was told
that DOGE was going to be incredibly transparent, and there
is a website doze dot govnor where it will tell you,
we'll give you like a number, like I think the
amount of savings right now is one hundred and ninety
nine billion. According to this website, there is a leader
board that I guess purports to show progress of which
(03:47):
agencies have saved the most. Has there been significant savings
as far as your reporting is shown, I think.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's fair to say that we can put a number
on it. However, many billion, if it's one hundred and
nine billion, whatever it is. First of all, you know,
over the last six months has been hard to even
figure out if these numbers are legitimate. There's been so
many discrepancies, you know, trying to even just like the
numbers being completely wrong, the numbers that they pull and
put on that website right, and so it's hard to
take anything on there as fact. But I think the
(04:20):
biggest story about these savings, though, is that when you
look at what the government spends, so much of the
spending goes to defense, it goes to Medicare, it goes
to Social Security, and those are the things that the
administration didn't want to cut. So what does that leave you.
It leaves you with programs that the health and Human
Services agencies they leave you with cutting things like the
(04:42):
PEP far and treating AIDS across you know, across the globe.
And so what we see more so is this refusal
to make these cuts, you know, in different places, which
leaves you such a tiny kind of meager bucket in
the grand scheme of things, of cuts that can be made.
But those cuts have rastic, you know, just dramatic consequences
(05:02):
for people. There's you know, there's been experts who have
tried to do the math on how many people have
died as a result of these cuts, and it's somewhere
like two hundred thousands, like the number that I've seen
most recently, including adults and children, just from things like
AIDS or malaria or programs that the government, the US
government use to support. And so you look at the savings,
(05:26):
I think if you look at like the Trump Administration's
recent like big beautiful bill and all of the you know,
the trillions that have been added to the deficit, axios
recently had a number like dojis savings compared to you know,
the rest of it the administration has done has been
something like six percent, just extremely meager savings in the
grand scheme of things, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I mean the thing that's been crazy to me is
and I guess we should have predicted this. But if
you send a bunch of like first Principles thinkers to
do like a close reading of government spending, you may
find waste, but you also may sort of get tour
of all the things the government does, some of which
are really impressive. And I mean, like we've seen that
(06:06):
so vividly with pepfar, which I think many people sort
of if they were aware of it, they had sort
of forgotten about it. And you look and there are
estimates you alluded to this, but like we found one
at the Lancet estimating that because of the cuts to
the USAID programs, they're looking at potentially fourteen million people
(06:27):
dying between now and twenty thirty who would have otherwise lived.
I mean, like a real body count to some of
these cuts. There's also the sort of brain drain quality
of this, right, And of course there are two ways
of seeing this. You know, on one hand, maybe they're
just like cutting the dead weight. I mean, this comes
this comes up a lot anytime. There are layoffs in
the private sector as well, but like we're talking about
(06:50):
what like tens of thousands of people whose careers were ended.
I think found one estimates from the Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics. It's a progressive nonprofit saying, you know, fifty
thousand people.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
What do you think the scale of those losses has been.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, I mean, first off, like this has completely changed
what government work was for so many people they leave
the private sector and join government because it's a more
stable job. Sure, you're not going to get paid as
much as you would at a Google or Facebook or
something like that, but there are benefits and you're not
you know, you haven't been afraid of being laid off constantly,
(07:26):
So dough is completely shook that up. Everyone at these
agencies are still terrified, even though Elon is out. All
of my sources at a bunch of agencies where DOGE
still is are terrified that they're going to get laid off.
All the work that has gone to them now with
people who have either retired early or been forcibly removed
from government, that work still needs to get done. And
(07:49):
even you know, the folks who are still there are
completely exhausted and trying to find exit ramps themselves. And so,
like you mentioned, like people would go to the public
sector to have a bit of a piece of mind
about their career, and now it's just as in their minds,
just as tumultuous as the private sector.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
All right, let's talk about you alluded to it a
couple times, but like this shift of what Doge is now.
You wrote a great piece for Wired about you know,
quote unquote Doge two point zero. What do you see
as Doge two point zero?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, So, like I mentioned, there's a lot of those
folks who were brought on at the beginning Edward big
Balls chorusing Luke Farredder. Yeah, and so a lot of
those kids are still in government, right, They're at a
variety of different agencies. Farreader is still at the Department
of Labor. He still has, you know, a tremendous amount
of power. But I think Doge one point oh can
(08:45):
be defined as this chaotic reckoning. All these people were
getting fired, right, It was about cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts
to contracts, cuts to all of that stuff. And we're
moving into something that feels more like a rebuilding, right,
So taking the scraps and the chaos that was left
by Doorge point one point oh, and maybe to Doge
(09:05):
two point zero, I think there's still cuts. I think
the Washington Post reported recently about this like DOGE deregulation
tool that they built. It's like an AI tool that's
supposed to go through two hundred thousand regulations in the
US government and find the ones to cut, which does
it sound like a very good way of going about
all of that. So there's still cuts, but there's major
(09:27):
IT projects that are still still undergoing. In April, I
reported about this tool that was being built at the
IRS that was essentially just just like Mega API to
unify all of the data at IRS to make it
more easily accessible and readable. That is still ongoing. It
was supposed to be done in thirty days, is what
Sam Corcos, the guy who was running that, the DOGE
guy who was running that IRIS, was trying to say.
(09:49):
It's definitely been a lot more than thirty days. That
is a very hard project. And there's you know, similar
projects going on at other agencies as well, and so yeah,
I think the OAG two point zero can be defined
more as this kind of rebuilding moment.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I think also, and tell me if this is wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I mean, it seems like part of what's going on
is like these guys the Farador Cours team, the sharp
young things that Elon Musk brought in, the Doge bros
are basically being integrated within agencies, Like Doge is embedding
itself within different agencies and it's no longer really called
(10:27):
Doge anymore. Like the Trump administration has rebranded, and I
want to talk about that rebranding and like what you
think is driving it, because there seemed like a couple
of different possibilities and maybe they're all driving. One is
obviously the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and
Elon Musk essentially first being eased out of Trump's orbit
(10:48):
and then having like a full blown fight with Donald Trump,
where I think the Trump administration now like doesn't want
to have a lot of association with Elon Musk. I
think the second thing, which is maybe more important, is
that this stuff turned out to be really really unpopular.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, especially with the Cabinet secretary secretaries where this was happening.
You see these Doge people being integrated into these agencies,
and most of the time they're being integrated in groups
that are more directly reporting to the cabinet secretaries and
their teams rather than you know, an Amy Gleeson or
Steve Davis or Elon Musk. So these cabinet secretaries want
(11:26):
to have more oversight of what's happening at their agencies.
We heard so much about Scott Bessant being like totally
upset with Elon, openly feuding with him at the White House.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean maybe he gave him the black eye.
We don't know, and I'm just kidding or have kidding, right, Yeah,
that was a.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Meme exactly, but you see that, And so they want
to have more oversight of this because even over I
feel like over the last couple of months we did
this story. You kind of talked about it about DOGE
two point zero and what it is, and I remember
we went to the White House and even some of
you know, senior administration officials there still had no idea
of what DOGE was doing. Like some of what we're
(12:04):
telling them is like news to them, and so they
need I think part of this new version of DOGE
is giving it a bit more accountability and oversight from
the politicals in charge.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, this story that you're talking about, this is Doughtube.
Listeners should definitely read it because it gives kind of
like the most comprehensive account of like what is happening
right now published in early July. One thing, and mckennay,
you alluded to this earlier, but part of this dough
tube we know is adopting some of these sort of
corporate processes that seem at once very familiar to anyone
(12:41):
who's worked in a large company and also just like
comically inefficient. It's like the next step of the you know,
Elon Musk loved to show the like memes of the
Office Space Consultants, the Bobs, acting like he was one
of the Office Space consultants, which always felt weird because you're, like,
the Bobs are the villains of that movie, and now
we're getting sort of weird corporate processes that don't seem
(13:06):
inherently who knows, maybe they are more efficient, but they
don't seem obviously more efficient to me. It seems like
many of your sources don't necessarily view them as inherently
more efficient than what was going on before.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, one of the things that stands out to me
that maybe isn't like the sexiest thing, but there was
the Executive Order earlier this year where they wanted to
bring procurement and contracting into GSA, and so GSA, the
General Services Administration, would be doing all of the contracting
work for every agency, which maybe sounds great, right to
somebody in the private industry, like we should have one
(13:40):
team doing all of this work. But it's really different.
When GSA does a lot of like tech, they do
a lot of like work specialized for them that they've
been doing for a very long time, instead having them
to do, you know, trying to get these people who
haven't worked at these agencies to figure out the best
you know, the best tech, the best resources, the best consultants,
all of these things. For agencies like AHHS, h CDC,
(14:02):
these more specialized groups, the Department of Energy and Nuclear,
you're asking folks who have no background in this to
make decisions on some of the most important programs in
our country. And so talk about inefficiency a lot of
these folks. And there's far less stuff right in these
procurement offices as well, so they're going to have to
really go through some process of like learning all of
(14:25):
this stuff in order to make this administration goal work.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Let's bring it back to Elon before we wrap. One
of the more intriguing things to come out of your
reporting recently was sort of information about Elon's continued to
influence within DOGE, like the fact, first of all, the
fact that a bunch of these Elon left he and
Trump are beefing. He's like talking about Epstein on Twitter
all the time, threatening to fund primary challenges, and yet
(14:57):
a bunch of the people he's still hired are in
positions of power. And you even reported in your story
that he was having sort of more direct influence via
deputies and so on, who are talking still kind of
in communication with members of the Trump administration or people
in senior positions. Is that still going on and do
(15:17):
you see that as a kind of lasting impact.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I don't have any news on whether that is still
ongoing this kinds of communication, but I do believe that
Elon's influence is still there, especially if you look at
someone like Luke Ferreder who is still in government. I
can't imagine someone like Luke or Big Balls or whoever,
(15:42):
or have plans to stay in the government forever.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Their allegiance is more to this kind of like Silicon
Valley mindset, these kinds of companies, and so they don't
want to do anything that would you know, put them
out of favor with Elon, and I think that is
maybe where more of that lasting influence will be as
long as those folks continue to work in government.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Do you think we're going to look back and say
that Elon Musk profited from this experience? I ask because
there have been reports at various points right about Musk
getting access to data, like not even necessarily not like
sensitive data to like violate people's privacy, but data that
would give him insight perhaps into markets that could be
(16:27):
useful from a business perspective. There's also been suggestions that, like,
for instance, X Money, that this effort by X to
like launch a payments platform, like one of the motivations
for gutting the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was
to launch X money, Like you could go on and on. Right,
They're different parts of the regulatory apparatus that touched Elon Musk,
(16:50):
And there has been this sort of suggestion that we're
not just witnessing sort of destruction of government for the
sake of efficiency. We're seeing something that looks more like looting.
And I'm kind of curious how your sources see it
and how you think about this conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, so I don't know if there's really been much
reporting about whether Elon himself has like walked out of
government with this like USB drive, you know, with all
of this data on it. So I think the work
that Doge did that could benefit Elon in the long
run that we can you know that I think we
(17:28):
can make a fair prediction would be, like you mentioned
the CFPB for example, does Elon have information that can
maybe help in with competitors, Who knows. But what did
happen is that he his team like basically Holy defanged
that agency. If there is something that Elon wants to
do with expay or whatever it is, the regulator there
(17:50):
who would go after him has far less resources than
it did before. And so I don't know if we
can say that he will come out of this with
like bags of gold bullion from all of this. But
I think he's created more of a shield for himself
and his businesses by the cuts that he made on
(18:11):
these agencies.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
What about his reputation you know for whatever you know,
help gutting the CFPV provided there is a sense that
like Trump at least say, I have a sense that
Trump has essentially let Elon take the fall for Doge
and like he's going to get blamed for this, and
like this is going to be this thing that if
you look at the public polling, is super unpopular, right,
(18:36):
Like the idea of making government more efficient is very popular.
The idea of Elon Musk's specific brand of making the
government efficient is extremely unpopular. And I think maybe that's
that's the legacy, is just that Elon has like permanently
damaged his reputation or or has added another thing that
(18:57):
is going to be hard for him to overcome in
terms of his and in terms of like his companies
and so on.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yeah, I think that's still to be seen though, Right,
there are still like these MAGA influencers who were obsessed
with Elon. There are still these MAGA influencers who, after
all this Epstein stuff with Trump, are willing to carry
water for him as well. Right, And So I don't
know if I've seen anything that has dramatically, you know,
(19:24):
changed the way that you know, the people who really support,
you know, the real true believers feel about him. I
guess it's still kind of like to be seen, all.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Right, McKenna, prediction time.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We will hold you to this prediction and invite you
back to to discuss it. But how where do you
see DOGE a year from now, twenty twenty six will
be heading into the midterm elections. Is it going strong?
Is Big Ball still there? Two questions. One is a
sort of government question, which is do you think this
(19:57):
project will be ongoing in some form and to will
it be will it have political salience, will be a
political issue that will help decide the midterms potentially even
the next presidency.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Hmmm, Dog is technically around till July twenty sixth, the
next year.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Okay, mark your calendar listeners, that's.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
When it's officially over. Kind of what I'm seeing now,
and if the trend continues for the next year, we're
going to continue to see these kinds of dog folks
from tech cycling in and out of government, you know,
doing some projects and then leaving. But I see like
(20:37):
there's still a bunch of people who are really excited
about this mission. I imagine they'll want to be a
part and then do their one hundred or something days
and then leave. But I don't think DOGE will ever
be what it was in January and February, right. I
think more so of what the legacy of DOGE is
is this kind of cultural shakeup, right, this changing of
(21:02):
what can happen in government and how it operates. And
you know, in a year from now, we'll probably see
a lot more of the consequences of these cuts, maybe
things that you know happen sooner, you know, closer to
the election that maybe. But yeah, I feel as if
the Democrats will still try and go after Elon the
(21:23):
Republicans for a lot of what happened this year.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yeah, I think it's going to be a huge political
issue actually as we're talking through it, just because anything
you're mad about with the government, we've just created this
situation or the Republicans really in doing this, like create
a situation where you create all this this like huge
vector for attack, which I think is why like deficits,
it's very hard to cut deficits spending in general, and
(21:48):
even if you're like super subtle about it and like
very politically nuanced, you still create that vector of attack.
But Elon Musk did it in such a gonzo way
that it's going to make it almost possible for this
not to be a huge issue. I feel like we
need to stock up on those DOGE baseball Caps now
because they're gonna be hard to find in a year
(22:10):
from now.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
We can sell him on eBay.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Baby, mm you know, I think I think you're right.
Oh man, where do we get those do chats?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Anyways, we've gotta find Elon's eBay alt and uh probably
got McKenna Kelly.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Thanks for joining.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Us, Yeah, no problem, great being here.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
This episode is produced by Stacy Wong and edited by
Anna Masarrakas Blake Maple's Handles engineering, with help from Joyce
Tang Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson.
The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed by Taka
Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura. Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcast. A big thanks as always to our supporters
(22:55):
Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I'm David Popdopolis. If you
have a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help
other listeners find us. See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Let me tell you we have a new star. A
star is born Elan mars Jusan Kennemy.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are out
pay in full post.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We were meant for great things in the United States
of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm very disappointed in Elan. I've helped Elan a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Hey, David Papatoapple's here, hosts of E Laning, and this
week we're going to roll out another installment of our
Summer Jealousy series. This time we have co host Max
Chafkin interviewing wire reporter and friend of pod McKenna Kelly
about her eight reporting on all things Doge, past, present
and future. So, by the way, I'll just note that
this conversation was recorded before Edward Korstein, the Doge guy
(01:10):
known as Big Balls, was attacked in a carjacking in Washington, DC,
and before President Donald Trump responded to that incident by
threatening and then actually ordering the federal government to take
over the DC police. Okay, enough for me, enjoy the interview.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
We're joined now by McKenna Kelly, who is a friend
of the show but also a senior writer at Wired.
She covers tech in politics, and listeners will know her
because for the past six months or so, McKenna has
been covering DOGE very closely, and we've talked her.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Before we talked to her, I think.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It was what in the beginning of the year about
this kind of crazy effort by Elon Musk to bring
these technologists into the government. But a lot's changed since then,
and we wanted to bring McKenna back on the podcast
to talk about what happened, what the legacy of DOGE
has been, and what comes next.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
McKenna, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it's great to be back, all right.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because,
you know, the Trump administration, like, there's this thing where
it's a reality show. Every day there's a new thing,
and and I think for a lot of people, DOGE
has sort of receded into the background, but this stuff
has been hugely consequential.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And I want to kind of take stock of it.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
So just to start of all that's happened, big balls
of it, all the Elon Musk, all all the craziness.
Like what do you see as like the top line
consequence of like all of the headlines around DOGE over
the last six months or so.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, So, I mean looking at what the last few
months have brought from DOGE and Elon, and I think
even now with Elon out at the picture and leaving government,
I still feel like Doge has a lasting impression. And
I feel as if that big picture impression that we
can see across all agencies, across so many parts of
(03:02):
government is that it's being more run like a private
business than you know, what the government used to be
prior to this, and that comes with a lot of
different consequences and ramifications when it comes to hiring, staffing, contracting,
just a variety of things that the government does every
day being done in a fundamentally different way.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
How do you evaluate the claims that Musk and others
in the Trump administration have made. So I was told
that DOGE was going to be incredibly transparent, and there
is a website doze dot govnor where it will tell you,
we'll give you like a number, like I think the
amount of savings right now is one hundred and ninety
nine billion. According to this website, there is a leader
board that I guess purports to show progress of which
(03:47):
agencies have saved the most. Has there been significant savings
as far as your reporting is shown, I think.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It's fair to say that we can put a number
on it. However, many billion, if it's one hundred and
nine billion, whatever it is. First of all, you know,
over the last six months has been hard to even
figure out if these numbers are legitimate. There's been so
many discrepancies, you know, trying to even just like the
numbers being completely wrong, the numbers that they pull and
put on that website right, and so it's hard to
take anything on there as fact. But I think the
(04:20):
biggest story about these savings, though, is that when you
look at what the government spends, so much of the
spending goes to defense, it goes to Medicare, it goes
to Social Security, and those are the things that the
administration didn't want to cut. So what does that leave you.
It leaves you with programs that the health and Human
Services agencies they leave you with cutting things like the
(04:42):
PEP far and treating AIDS across you know, across the globe.
And so what we see more so is this refusal
to make these cuts, you know, in different places, which
leaves you such a tiny kind of meager bucket in
the grand scheme of things, of cuts that can be made.
But those cuts have rastic, you know, just dramatic consequences
(05:02):
for people. There's you know, there's been experts who have
tried to do the math on how many people have
died as a result of these cuts, and it's somewhere
like two hundred thousands, like the number that I've seen
most recently, including adults and children, just from things like
AIDS or malaria or programs that the government, the US
government use to support. And so you look at the savings,
(05:26):
I think if you look at like the Trump Administration's
recent like big beautiful bill and all of the you know,
the trillions that have been added to the deficit, axios
recently had a number like dojis savings compared to you know,
the rest of it the administration has done has been
something like six percent, just extremely meager savings in the
grand scheme of things, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I mean the thing that's been crazy to me is
and I guess we should have predicted this. But if
you send a bunch of like first Principles thinkers to
do like a close reading of government spending, you may
find waste, but you also may sort of get tour
of all the things the government does, some of which
are really impressive. And I mean, like we've seen that
(06:06):
so vividly with pepfar, which I think many people sort
of if they were aware of it, they had sort
of forgotten about it. And you look and there are
estimates you alluded to this, but like we found one
at the Lancet estimating that because of the cuts to
the USAID programs, they're looking at potentially fourteen million people
(06:27):
dying between now and twenty thirty who would have otherwise lived.
I mean, like a real body count to some of
these cuts. There's also the sort of brain drain quality
of this, right, And of course there are two ways
of seeing this. You know, on one hand, maybe they're
just like cutting the dead weight. I mean, this comes
this comes up a lot anytime. There are layoffs in
the private sector as well, but like we're talking about
(06:50):
what like tens of thousands of people whose careers were ended.
I think found one estimates from the Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics. It's a progressive nonprofit saying, you know, fifty
thousand people.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
What do you think the scale of those losses has been.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, I mean, first off, like this has completely changed
what government work was for so many people they leave
the private sector and join government because it's a more
stable job. Sure, you're not going to get paid as
much as you would at a Google or Facebook or
something like that, but there are benefits and you're not
you know, you haven't been afraid of being laid off constantly,
(07:26):
So dough is completely shook that up. Everyone at these
agencies are still terrified, even though Elon is out. All
of my sources at a bunch of agencies where DOGE
still is are terrified that they're going to get laid off.
All the work that has gone to them now with
people who have either retired early or been forcibly removed
from government, that work still needs to get done. And
(07:49):
even you know, the folks who are still there are
completely exhausted and trying to find exit ramps themselves. And so,
like you mentioned, like people would go to the public
sector to have a bit of a piece of mind
about their career, and now it's just as in their minds,
just as tumultuous as the private sector.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
All right, let's talk about you alluded to it a
couple times, but like this shift of what Doge is now.
You wrote a great piece for Wired about you know,
quote unquote Doge two point zero. What do you see
as Doge two point zero?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, So, like I mentioned, there's a lot of those
folks who were brought on at the beginning Edward big
Balls chorusing Luke Farredder. Yeah, and so a lot of
those kids are still in government, right, They're at a
variety of different agencies. Farreader is still at the Department
of Labor. He still has, you know, a tremendous amount
of power. But I think Doge one point oh can
(08:45):
be defined as this chaotic reckoning. All these people were
getting fired, right, It was about cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts
to contracts, cuts to all of that stuff. And we're
moving into something that feels more like a rebuilding, right,
So taking the scraps and the chaos that was left
by Doorge point one point oh, and maybe to Doge
(09:05):
two point zero, I think there's still cuts. I think
the Washington Post reported recently about this like DOGE deregulation
tool that they built. It's like an AI tool that's
supposed to go through two hundred thousand regulations in the
US government and find the ones to cut, which does
it sound like a very good way of going about
all of that. So there's still cuts, but there's major
(09:27):
IT projects that are still still undergoing. In April, I
reported about this tool that was being built at the
IRS that was essentially just just like Mega API to
unify all of the data at IRS to make it
more easily accessible and readable. That is still ongoing. It
was supposed to be done in thirty days, is what
Sam Corcos, the guy who was running that, the DOGE
guy who was running that IRIS, was trying to say.
(09:49):
It's definitely been a lot more than thirty days. That
is a very hard project. And there's you know, similar
projects going on at other agencies as well, and so yeah,
I think the OAG two point zero can be defined
more as this kind of rebuilding moment.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I think also, and tell me if this is wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I mean, it seems like part of what's going on
is like these guys the Farador Cours team, the sharp
young things that Elon Musk brought in, the Doge bros
are basically being integrated within agencies, Like Doge is embedding
itself within different agencies and it's no longer really called
(10:27):
Doge anymore. Like the Trump administration has rebranded, and I
want to talk about that rebranding and like what you
think is driving it, because there seemed like a couple
of different possibilities and maybe they're all driving. One is
obviously the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and
Elon Musk essentially first being eased out of Trump's orbit
(10:48):
and then having like a full blown fight with Donald Trump,
where I think the Trump administration now like doesn't want
to have a lot of association with Elon Musk. I
think the second thing, which is maybe more important, is
that this stuff turned out to be really really unpopular.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, especially with the Cabinet secretary secretaries where this was happening.
You see these Doge people being integrated into these agencies,
and most of the time they're being integrated in groups
that are more directly reporting to the cabinet secretaries and
their teams rather than you know, an Amy Gleeson or
Steve Davis or Elon Musk. So these cabinet secretaries want
(11:26):
to have more oversight of what's happening at their agencies.
We heard so much about Scott Bessant being like totally
upset with Elon, openly feuding with him at the White House.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean maybe he gave him the black eye.
We don't know, and I'm just kidding or have kidding, right, Yeah,
that was a.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Meme exactly, but you see that, And so they want
to have more oversight of this because even over I
feel like over the last couple of months we did
this story. You kind of talked about it about DOGE
two point zero and what it is, and I remember
we went to the White House and even some of
you know, senior administration officials there still had no idea
of what DOGE was doing. Like some of what we're
(12:04):
telling them is like news to them, and so they
need I think part of this new version of DOGE
is giving it a bit more accountability and oversight from
the politicals in charge.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, this story that you're talking about, this is Doughtube.
Listeners should definitely read it because it gives kind of
like the most comprehensive account of like what is happening
right now published in early July. One thing, and mckennay,
you alluded to this earlier, but part of this dough
tube we know is adopting some of these sort of
corporate processes that seem at once very familiar to anyone
(12:41):
who's worked in a large company and also just like
comically inefficient. It's like the next step of the you know,
Elon Musk loved to show the like memes of the
Office Space Consultants, the Bobs, acting like he was one
of the Office Space consultants, which always felt weird because you're, like,
the Bobs are the villains of that movie, and now
we're getting sort of weird corporate processes that don't seem
(13:06):
inherently who knows, maybe they are more efficient, but they
don't seem obviously more efficient to me. It seems like
many of your sources don't necessarily view them as inherently
more efficient than what was going on before.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, one of the things that stands out to me
that maybe isn't like the sexiest thing, but there was
the Executive Order earlier this year where they wanted to
bring procurement and contracting into GSA, and so GSA, the
General Services Administration, would be doing all of the contracting
work for every agency, which maybe sounds great, right to
somebody in the private industry, like we should have one
(13:40):
team doing all of this work. But it's really different.
When GSA does a lot of like tech, they do
a lot of like work specialized for them that they've
been doing for a very long time, instead having them
to do, you know, trying to get these people who
haven't worked at these agencies to figure out the best
you know, the best tech, the best resources, the best consultants,
all of these things. For agencies like AHHS, h CDC,
(14:02):
these more specialized groups, the Department of Energy and Nuclear,
you're asking folks who have no background in this to
make decisions on some of the most important programs in
our country. And so talk about inefficiency a lot of
these folks. And there's far less stuff right in these
procurement offices as well, so they're going to have to
really go through some process of like learning all of
(14:25):
this stuff in order to make this administration goal work.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Let's bring it back to Elon before we wrap. One
of the more intriguing things to come out of your
reporting recently was sort of information about Elon's continued to
influence within DOGE, like the fact, first of all, the
fact that a bunch of these Elon left he and
Trump are beefing. He's like talking about Epstein on Twitter
all the time, threatening to fund primary challenges, and yet
(14:57):
a bunch of the people he's still hired are in
positions of power. And you even reported in your story
that he was having sort of more direct influence via
deputies and so on, who are talking still kind of
in communication with members of the Trump administration or people
in senior positions. Is that still going on and do
(15:17):
you see that as a kind of lasting impact.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I don't have any news on whether that is still
ongoing this kinds of communication, but I do believe that
Elon's influence is still there, especially if you look at
someone like Luke Ferreder who is still in government. I
can't imagine someone like Luke or Big Balls or whoever,
(15:42):
or have plans to stay in the government forever.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Their allegiance is more to this kind of like Silicon
Valley mindset, these kinds of companies, and so they don't
want to do anything that would you know, put them
out of favor with Elon, and I think that is
maybe where more of that lasting influence will be as
long as those folks continue to work in government.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Do you think we're going to look back and say
that Elon Musk profited from this experience? I ask because
there have been reports at various points right about Musk
getting access to data, like not even necessarily not like
sensitive data to like violate people's privacy, but data that
would give him insight perhaps into markets that could be
(16:27):
useful from a business perspective. There's also been suggestions that, like,
for instance, X Money, that this effort by X to
like launch a payments platform, like one of the motivations
for gutting the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was
to launch X money, Like you could go on and on. Right,
They're different parts of the regulatory apparatus that touched Elon Musk,
(16:50):
And there has been this sort of suggestion that we're
not just witnessing sort of destruction of government for the
sake of efficiency. We're seeing something that looks more like looting.
And I'm kind of curious how your sources see it
and how you think about this conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, so I don't know if there's really been much
reporting about whether Elon himself has like walked out of
government with this like USB drive, you know, with all
of this data on it. So I think the work
that Doge did that could benefit Elon in the long
run that we can you know that I think we
(17:28):
can make a fair prediction would be, like you mentioned
the CFPB for example, does Elon have information that can
maybe help in with competitors, Who knows. But what did
happen is that he his team like basically Holy defanged
that agency. If there is something that Elon wants to
do with expay or whatever it is, the regulator there
(17:50):
who would go after him has far less resources than
it did before. And so I don't know if we
can say that he will come out of this with
like bags of gold bullion from all of this. But
I think he's created more of a shield for himself
and his businesses by the cuts that he made on
(18:11):
these agencies.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
What about his reputation you know for whatever you know,
help gutting the CFPV provided there is a sense that
like Trump at least say, I have a sense that
Trump has essentially let Elon take the fall for Doge
and like he's going to get blamed for this, and
like this is going to be this thing that if
you look at the public polling, is super unpopular, right,
(18:36):
Like the idea of making government more efficient is very popular.
The idea of Elon Musk's specific brand of making the
government efficient is extremely unpopular. And I think maybe that's
that's the legacy, is just that Elon has like permanently
damaged his reputation or or has added another thing that
(18:57):
is going to be hard for him to overcome in
terms of his and in terms of like his companies
and so on.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yeah, I think that's still to be seen though, Right,
there are still like these MAGA influencers who were obsessed
with Elon. There are still these MAGA influencers who, after
all this Epstein stuff with Trump, are willing to carry
water for him as well. Right, And So I don't
know if I've seen anything that has dramatically, you know,
(19:24):
changed the way that you know, the people who really support,
you know, the real true believers feel about him. I
guess it's still kind of like to be seen, all.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Right, McKenna, prediction time.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We will hold you to this prediction and invite you
back to to discuss it. But how where do you
see DOGE a year from now, twenty twenty six will
be heading into the midterm elections. Is it going strong?
Is Big Ball still there? Two questions. One is a
sort of government question, which is do you think this
(19:57):
project will be ongoing in some form and to will
it be will it have political salience, will be a
political issue that will help decide the midterms potentially even
the next presidency.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Hmmm, Dog is technically around till July twenty sixth, the
next year.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Okay, mark your calendar listeners, that's.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
When it's officially over. Kind of what I'm seeing now,
and if the trend continues for the next year, we're
going to continue to see these kinds of dog folks
from tech cycling in and out of government, you know,
doing some projects and then leaving. But I see like
(20:37):
there's still a bunch of people who are really excited
about this mission. I imagine they'll want to be a
part and then do their one hundred or something days
and then leave. But I don't think DOGE will ever
be what it was in January and February, right. I
think more so of what the legacy of DOGE is
is this kind of cultural shakeup, right, this changing of
(21:02):
what can happen in government and how it operates. And
you know, in a year from now, we'll probably see
a lot more of the consequences of these cuts, maybe
things that you know happen sooner, you know, closer to
the election that maybe. But yeah, I feel as if
the Democrats will still try and go after Elon the
(21:23):
Republicans for a lot of what happened this year.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yeah, I think it's going to be a huge political
issue actually as we're talking through it, just because anything
you're mad about with the government, we've just created this
situation or the Republicans really in doing this, like create
a situation where you create all this this like huge
vector for attack, which I think is why like deficits,
it's very hard to cut deficits spending in general, and
(21:48):
even if you're like super subtle about it and like
very politically nuanced, you still create that vector of attack.
But Elon Musk did it in such a gonzo way
that it's going to make it almost possible for this
not to be a huge issue. I feel like we
need to stock up on those DOGE baseball Caps now
because they're gonna be hard to find in a year
(22:10):
from now.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
We can sell him on eBay.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Baby, mm you know, I think I think you're right.
Oh man, where do we get those do chats?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Anyways, we've gotta find Elon's eBay alt and uh probably
got McKenna Kelly.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Thanks for joining.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Us, Yeah, no problem, great being here.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
This episode is produced by Stacy Wong and edited by
Anna Masarrakas Blake Maple's Handles engineering, with help from Joyce
Tang Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson.
The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed by Taka
Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura. Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcast. A big thanks as always to our supporters
(22:55):
Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I'm David Popdopolis. If you
have a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help
other listeners find us. See you next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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