The Department of Government Efficiency ceased operations over the weekend with eight months still remaining on its mandate and trillions short of its spending reduction goals, officials confirmed Sunday.
Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters the department was shuttered over the weekend.
DOGE “doesn’t exist,” Kupor said, and added that the agency is no longer a “centralized entity.”
It’s the first public confirmation from the Trump administration that DOGE has been officially disbanded. President Donald Trump created the department through executive order on his first day in office in January 2025. The mandate was set to run through July 2026.
Elon Musk led the department through its most active period before departing in May 2025. Vivek Ramaswamy was initially tapped to co-lead the effort but left early to run for governor of Ohio.
Musk had promised to cut $2 trillion from government spending. In October 2024, he called that figure one-third of the federal budget. By January 2025, he walked back on the promise during an interview on X.
“That’s the best-case outcome,” Musk said, but said there was a “good shot” of reaching half that target.
In the end, DOGE fell well short of Musk’s goal. The DOGE website claims the department saved $214 billion annually at the federal level.
Musk left government service after a public feud with Trump over the “One Big Beautiful Bill” spending legislation. Musk said the bill increased the deficit and undermined DOGE’s work, and posted on X that the “pork-filled” bill was a “disgusting abomination.”
I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
Trump said he was disappointed because he “always liked Elon” when he was asked about Musk’s criticism during a June 4 Oval Office appearance. The two publicly reconciled in September, and Musk later posted on X that he wanted to thank Trump “for all he has done for America and the world.”
The Office of Personnel Management has absorbed many of DOGE’s functions, according to Kupor and Reuters reporting. The Trump administration also recently lifted a government hiring freeze associated with DOGE.
Former DOGE employees now hold senior positions across the federal government. Zachary Terrell serves as Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services. Rachel Riley is Chief of the Office of Naval Research. Jeremy Lewin oversees foreign assistance at the State Department.
DOGE quickly cut federal budgets, eliminated unnecessary positions, and put technology systems into place with great fanfare during its early months. Musk told his followers on X in February that he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” He also appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland wielding a chainsaw.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk promised.
However, after the U.S. Agency for International Development was effectively shut down in July 2025, DOGE’s work slowed significantly.
While the DOGE account on X posted Sunday that over the past nine days agencies “terminated and descoped 78 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $1.9B and savings of $335M,” critics said the work didn’t cut deep enough to make a serious dent in federal spending.
Insiders say that while DOGE has ceased to exist as an entity, the administration’s work to cut federal spending will continue.
Good editing by @reuters – spliced my full comments across paragraphs 2/3 to create a grabbing headline 🙂 The truth is: DOGE may not have centralized leadership under @USDS. But, the principles of DOGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse;…
— Scott Kupor (@skupor) November 23, 2025