The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a flagship initiative of President Donald Trump’s administration, has apparently been dissolved with eight months still remaining on its contract. The move brings an abrupt end to a controversial campaign that saw federal agencies invaded, budgets slashed, and hundreds of thousands of workers dismissed.
Confirmation of Doge’s demise came earlier this month when Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), told Reuters that the department “doesn’t exist” and was no longer a “centralised entity”.
His remarks formalised suspicions that had been circulating for months about the department’s future.
Doge was created by executive order on Trump’s first day in office, with the stated aim of driving “large scale structural reform” across government. Tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were appointed to lead the effort, which was scheduled to run until July 2026.
Musk defended the department’s record earlier this year, claiming it had been “as transparent as possible”. Yet Doge agents often refused to identify themselves, imposed spending cuts without consultation, and failed to provide a public accounting of their work. Critics argued that the lack of transparency undermined the very purpose of the initiative.
Signs of disbandment began to surface in June, when Politico reported that staff had vacated Doge’s headquarters, where many had been living since February, and sought new accommodation. The exodus followed a public feud between Trump and Musk, which raised questions about the department’s stability. Former employees were said to be concerned that their involvement in mass layoffs and programme closures could expose them to legal consequences.
By May, Doge had overseen the dismissal of more than 200,000 federal workers, with a further 75,000 accepting buyouts. The organisation claimed these measures saved billions of dollars, but experts noted that the absence of detailed records made it impossible to verify such claims.
One former Doge official, now working within a federal agency, told Politico: “If somebody from Doge, or representing themselves from Doge, asked me to do something, I wouldn’t just blindly do it.” The comment reflected the growing scepticism within government about the department’s authority.
Although the Trump administration has not publicly acknowledged Doge’s dissolution, documents obtained by Reuters show that the OPM has assumed many of its responsibilities. Trump himself has referred to Doge in the past tense, and Musk’s departure from Washington in May further fuelled speculation that the project had ended.
Several senior figures from Doge have since taken up new roles across government. Amy Gleason, the acting administrator, became an adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr in March. Zachary Terrell, another senior member, was appointed chief technology officer at the Department of Health. Rachel Riley moved to the Office of Naval Research as its chief.
The most prominent departure was Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, who was tasked by Trump with improving the design of government websites. Since leaving Doge, Gebbia has launched online platforms to recruit law enforcement officers in Washington DC and to promote the administration’s drug pricing programme.
The dissolution of Doge marks the end of one of the most ambitious and contentious experiments in federal restructuring. While its leaders insisted they were delivering efficiency and savings, the lack of transparency and the scale of job losses left many questioning both its methods and its legacy.
As responsibilities shift back to established agencies such as the OPM, the episode raises broader questions about the viability of radical reform initiatives imposed from outside the traditional structures of government. For now, Doge exists only as a brief and turbulent chapter in the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy.
