Musk's plan for 'DOGE' initiative looks worse as details become clearer

It has never been entirely clear how exactly the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (or “DOGE”) is supposed to operate. Ostensibly, Donald Trump tapped Elon Musk and dropped White House nominee Vivek Ramaswamy to oversee the advisory board and, according to the president-elect, campaign promisesthe informal council will identify $2 trillion to cut from the federal budget.

However, just beneath the surface, this entire enterprise is highly suspect.

For one, Musk and Ramaswamy have no experience with auditing or the federal budget. On the other hand, their “department” will have no real power: if they proposed ideas for cuts, the panel could write a harsh note full of suggestions, but that’s it.

Worse still, the Republican megadonor overseeing this scheme has already admitted that he will not be able to achieve Trump’s goals.

But the larger “DOGE” effort is apparently moving forward anyway – in an increasingly discouraging way. The New York Times reported:

An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and a few disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cutting costs. As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s so-called Department of Government Effectiveness prepares to combat “wasteful” spending, he is preparing to send people with ties to his co-leaders, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, in federal government agencies. .

According to the Times’ reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, a group of private-sector executives will station themselves at actual federal agencies — working on a volunteer basis — for six-month stints.

As for how leaders will be chosen, the Times report , which was based on “interviews with a dozen people with insight into DOGE’s operations,” added: “Mr. Musk’s friends were intimately involved in choosing who would be deployed to various agencies.”

Collectively, they will effectively function as “a brand for an interconnected group of ambitious leaders who participate in common group discussions and share a loyalty to Mr. Musk or Mr. Ramaswamy.”

It’s worth stopping to appreciate just how bizarre these circumstances are. The world’s richest individual and his friends will, according to the announced plan, deploy unpaid volunteers – who will apparently be accountable to no one – to spend time in federal agencies for several months. The nature of their responsibilities remains unclear, but their apparent goal will be to look for ways to reduce costs and make current departments more “efficient.”

Why would federal employees and civil servants give the time of day to these volunteers – private citizens without legal authority? Or let them participate in meetings? Or let them roam the hallways? Your guess is as good as mine.

Additionally, just to re-emphasize, even though these unpaid billionaires, tech executives, and Thiel disciples have made dramatic recommendations regarding laying off some of the workforce and/or streamlining departmental work, “DOGE” is not a real department, so there is no reason to believe it. the suggestions would be considerable.

MSNBC contributor Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News spoke with a top Republican aide last month. who described Musk and Ramaswamy are “two people who know nothing about how government works and claim they can cut a trillion dollars.” The same aide predicted that this entire endeavor would likely end in “disaster.”

The more specific the “DOGE” plan becomes, the easier it is to take this prediction seriously.

This article updates our related prior coverage.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com