DOGE “cut muscle, not fat”; 26K experts rehired after brutal cuts
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/doge-doesnt-exist-anymore-but-expert-says-its-still-not-dead/
DOGE “cut muscle, not fat”; 26K experts rehired after brutal cuts
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/doge-doesnt-exist-anymore-but-expert-says-its-still-not-dead/
44 comments
I’m glad they used the chainsaw photo, because that’s exactly what this entire thing was: a publicity stunt. Pure theatrics. It was never about saving money or eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. That would’ve required months of targeted studies and an examination of processes and policies. Musk, Trump, and the fanatical MAGA base have no patience for that.
No, DOGE was a combination of marketing the Trump administration as saving taxpayer money while allowing Project 2025 to lay waste to the federal workforce and eliminate vital programs and services that benefit the country in ways people are only just beginning to understand. DOGE was designed for news headlines and Truth Social posts. It was never designed to make the government more efficient.
Elon Musk just got a $1,000,000,000,000 raise on top of his $500,000,000,000 nest egg. He’s received $380,000,000,000 from the taxpayers, and he absolutely HATES government waste (such as food stamps and medical care).
But they got our personal and financial information. That’s what mattered.
Career federal employee checking in, in my corner of the government, there is no fat. We bring our own fucking office supplies in because we’re such damn penny pinchers.
As planned.
Nailed it: https://www.wired.com/story/federal-auditors-doge-elon-musk/
Elon Musk IS THE FAT. The next democratic president better make sure that mfer never gets another federal dime. I don’t care if it sets back our space program. Fuck Elon Musk. I don’t want him to have a single red cent of my tax dollars.
Doge took all the data and wrecked the room on their way out.
DOGE also installed catheters everywhere that drain shittons of government data directly to Muskrat.
Elon should be held accountable for all the shit he broke.
Many thousands more experts never rehired, agencies struggling to keep up, and they fired the new probationary staff who should be learning the ropes. AND have still prevented staff from taking leadership roles to back fill all those who have left.
DOGE is “gone” but we are still sitting here bleeding.
It is funny conservatives try to sell themselves as cautious deep thinker. They want the same things as liberals, they just want to take it slow to avoid mistakes. “Slavery seems bad and we are against it, but let’s not rush into anything. There could be negative side effects to ending it. We need to do a feasibility study. Probably we could end it in two or three hundred years. That is pretty fast. Say around 2100. ” The good old Chesterton’s Fence. Strange it looks like they are always leaping without looking. So Curious.
Told you, DOGE cuts were never about efficiency, it was about dismantling the government
Doge did what Musk wanted by removing all of his potential crimes from investigation by wiping the agencies clean, as well as giving him access to data, probably the treasury, and installing his own special software everywhere he could.
Musk should pay for the damages.
It’s fine. Grok can do the work of thousands of government employees and net the richest man in the world a nice profit.
This never was about government waste…
Yet another failure by the GOP, such a joke of a party, they can’t govern anything.
It undermined the unspoken promise that life long professional class of dedicated bureaucrats that run our government no matter what party is in the administration will be left alone to do what they need to do for the best outcome for our country- that is long gone.
This is because we allowed a few dumbasses to run the country like it’s a corporation. Everyone knows that the people at the top are so far out of their comfort zones. They literally have no clue how the company even works once they get so far up their own asses in management. This is what happens when you let incompetence run a company much less the whole damn country!! They have absolutely no foresight, only short sight. The best way to show a short term profit is to fire the employees. It makes your financial spreadsheet look amazing!!
it turns out the part of the government that does stuff for people and industry was actually very efficient, and all of the fat was in the DoD, which suspiciously was not audited
I don’t know how this man isn’t getting chased out the country.
You mean the team of teenagers led by a ketamine junky didn’t manage to do anything worthwhile? Who could have known?
He knew exactly what he was doing. Cut the people who would immediately recognize that what he was doing was wrong and would try to stop it. Musk’s entire job was to pilfer money and redirect it to the billionaire’s fund.
Workforce payroll is a small sliver of government spending.
Vital organs, not just muscle and fat. That missing kidney is going to cause problems sooner rather than later.
My brother was one of them but he’s currently looking for another job bc why tf would anyone stay with a federal job after the drama this year
I mean, to be fair, their Dear Leader has been mistaking fat for muscle all his life.
Wow!
It’s almost like DOGE was a fucking massive scam!
I genuinely wish America would learn an important lesson from this: Tech billionaires are full of shit.
They imagine the world is a software problem waiting for their ‘genius capitalist’ solution. But at the end of the day, they had one lucky thing happen at just the right time. That’s the extent of all of them. They live and breathe unearned confidence.
Yup, all it did was damage American institutions, many permanently harmed and mangled, and the only ones to benefit are Trump’s inner circle and Musk.
The LARGEST DATA BREACH IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Federal workers tend to be really good on very modest pay, which is probably why every time something gets privatized it ends up getting way shittier and more expensive, while all the value gets eaten up by the investor class.
Now the Administration can be all like “look at that – hiring numbers are up!”
It was a distraction. He got everything he needed and more than he dreamed of. A foreign national.
Even fat shouldn’t be cut mindlessly. It’s our body’s defense against environmental factors. Government jobs should be slightly bloated to offer more room for buffer if something go wrong.
If “efficiency” was easy enough to achieve that DOGE could’ve done it a different government would’ve already done so years ago. Of course, they didn’t because it’s *not* possible, and also because Musk’s definition of “efficiency” is anything but efficient when applied to a government.
I love how some journalists make cute analogies while describing borderline illegal bureaucratic disasters
… Doesn’t matter the damage is done. I truly feel for everyone who went through that. The effects will be felt for a long time. Disgusting.
I can’t with these people! I’m not on X but as quoted ‘Musk posted on X, “What the heck was the point of DOGE, if he’s just going to increase the debt by $5 trillion??”
I’m facepalming myself 50x. This is what they campaigned on! I watched Musk tell us all on TV (tell me I’m not the only one?) and they literally told everyone that’s they were gonna do. Raise the debt to cut the deficit. I seriously can’t believe voters believed this crap. I seriously can’t believe voters are still believing this crap. But yet they refuse to believe Trump bankrupted a casino. Once again, these people are outta their fucking minds!
This was done on purpose. Car company CEO would run public transport into the ground through Cuts to sell more cars.
He just wanted to gut more than transport and find opportunities to exploit later
DOGE was a very expensive fever dream
I understand why the employees accepted to be rehired, but a part of me wishes they didn’t. Fuck DOGE.
Wow, you mean 5 twenty year old boys didn’t know what they were doing when given full control over the U.S.
Government?
Shocked
You mean a guy going by the moniker of “big balls” didn’t do any due diligence when making cuts?
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