When Elon Musk launched the Department of Government Efficiency—DOGE for short—it felt like just another one of his headline-grabbing stunts. But the reality? It was a wrecking ball disguised as a government experiment. Analysis now shows millions of deaths could follow by 2030, and more than 200,000 American jobs were obliterated in the process.
DOGE’s purge “has ended its reign of terror eight months earlier than mandated” after Musk tore into medical research, international aid, and other programs that literally kept people alive, Salon’s Heather Digby Parton wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday. Eight months. That’s how long it took for a self-styled efficiency czar to leave devastation in his wake.
This wasn’t government reform—it was Musk playing god with taxpayer-funded data. His “pet project” hired “a collection of young nerds Musk imported from his other companies, led by a couple of trusted aides, and the first thing they did was dig into data the government collects on companies and individuals. (Why that access was so vital has never been fully explained).” Some analysts suspect Musk funneled this treasure trove into building Grok, his artificial intelligence project.
And the human cost? Catastrophic. “Foreign aid was of particular interest to Musk, who is originally from South Africa, so he immediately targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and programs that were keeping people alive around the world. They were abruptly halted,” Digby Parton wrote. A Lancet study predicts DOGE cuts could lead to 14 million deaths by 2030—four million of them children. Let that sink in. Four million children.
All for what? “Negligible” benefits for American taxpayers. DOGE had promised massive savings. August Politico analysis found it delivered less than 5% of that. The chaos left in its wake proves what many already suspected: “The story of the department’s dissolution is a testament to how dysfunctional it was — and how Musk’s supposed business genius is clearly overrated.”
The political drama only makes it more surreal. Musk’s once-public bromance with Donald Trump has shifted from cozy friendship to fiery falling out and now awkward rapprochement.
“Like so many wealthy men — including Donald Trump and most of his Cabinet — he was convinced that because he had been successful at running a company and making money, he was a genius who could do anything. And like so many who erroneously believe that government should be run like a business, Musk failed to understand that it is a completely different animal, requiring political skills, coalition building and finding consensus,” she wrote.
The DOGE disaster also seems to have accelerated Musk’s descent into ever-more radical ventures. “Like most people who spend too much time on X, Musk has become more radical than ever,” Digby Parton observed. “His AI experiments get more bizarre by the day, and his SpaceX projects, which include driverless cybercabs, have been repeatedly delayed. Tesla shareholders just agreed to pay him a trillion dollars, but considering the stock price, maybe they should have taken a page from DOGE and cut their losses like Trump did.”
DOGE is gone, but the damage is far from over. Elon Musk promised efficiency. Instead, he left death, disruption, and dysfunction. DOGE was more than a failed experiment—it was a catastrophe whose consequences will be measured in human lives.
