The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative launched to reduce the size of government, on Tuesday dismissed reports of its shutdown and said it would return in a few days with a regularly scheduled Friday update.
A Reuters report said US President Donald Trump’s administration has disintegrated with eight months left in his term.
Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Scott Kupor, in an interview with the news agency, when asked about the status of the DOGE, said that it does not exist, adding: “It is no longer a ‘centralized entity.’
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Kupor also claimed that OPM, the federal government’s human resources office, has since taken over many of DOGE’s functions.
A few months ago, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, left DOGE, where he served as an administrative advisor.
However, in a post on X, DOGE called it fake news.
“President Trump received a mandate from the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Last week alone, DOGE terminated 78 wasteful contracts and saved taxpayers $335 million,” DOGE said in a post on X handle.
He further added, “We’ll be back in a few days with our regularly scheduled Friday update.”
In response to a post by X handle DogeDesigner, who shared the Reuter news article, Musk took aim at the news agency.
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In January 2025, the agency was created to quickly shrink federal agencies, cut their budgets, or redirect their work to Trump’s priorities.
The report also said that two prominent DOGE employees are now involved in the National Design Studio, a new body headed by Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, which was created by an executive order signed by Trump in August.
DOGE claims to have cut spending by tens of billions of dollars.
“President Trump has been given a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government, and he continues to actively deliver on that commitment,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston was quoted as saying by Reuters in response to the email.
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Meanwhile, government workers and contractors affected by the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) want Elon Musk to testify in a lawsuit accusing him of illegally handling the agency’s dissolution.
According to Bloomberg, the government argued that those suing failed to show that the situation involved “extraordinary circumstances” that would overcome “long-standing limitations” on persuasive testimony from senior executive branch officials.
