Elon Musk and his team of government downsizers have been popping up inside federal agencies in their quest to bulldoze the bureaucracy.
The tech billionaire, whom President Donald Trump has appointed to lead his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has already singled out several government agencies for sweeping overhauls or all-out demolition during his first two weeks on the job.
The Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration, the Treasury Department and the Education Department have all reportedly been among the early DOGE targets. In their most aggressive push yet toward an agency, Musk and the Trump administration moved to fully shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on social media early Monday. That followed another post from Musk saying, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”
Workers at other agencies worry they’ll be next on Musk’s list.
One EPA employee received a text message from a colleague Tuesday saying, “I hope he doesn’t come here next,” said the EPA employee who was granted anonymity because they fear retaliation. “I don’t know if he really needs to come here,” that person said. “We’ve been so targeted already.”
Employees at the National Science Foundation are expecting Musk to show up there eventually. “We’re sure it’s coming,” just like USAID and the Education Department, said one employee at the science agency.
Interior Department employees are also nervous about a possible Musk arrival.
“There’s no reason why DOGE should be at our department, but now we are worried that he will show up and interfere with the business we provide to the American people,” said a staffer who works at that department.
Trump established the DOGE operation with an executive order signed on his first day of office. That order renamed an existing White House office as the U.S. DOGE Service and directed each agency head to set up their own DOGE teams of at least four people within 30 days.
The White House declined to comment about which agencies already have DOGE employees in place.
At EPA, one employee reportedly associated with DOGE has popped up in the staff directory, but an agency spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about whether DOGE employees are working there or about whether Musk has any plans to visit the agency.
“DOGE is fulfilling President Trump’s commitment to making government more accountable, efficient, and, most importantly, restoring proper stewardship of the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars,” a White House spokesperson said in an email.
“Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities,” that spokesperson said. “The ongoing operations of DOGE may be seen as disruptive by those entrenched in the federal bureaucracy, who resist change. While change can be uncomfortable, it is necessary and aligns with the mandate supported by more than 77 million American voters.”
Musk is a “special government employee,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters this week. That classification allows federal employees to work temporarily for the government with or without pay.
‘Much more determined this time’
Trump’s allies are eager to see Musk and his team make massive cuts to federal environmental and energy agencies.
Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team following the 2016 presidential election, thinks the second Trump administration might be more successful in securing cuts to those agencies than it was last time.
After the first couple of weeks in office, Ebell said, it appears “that they’re much more determined this time, and that they’re not going to put up with the B.S. explanations.”
Ebell — who pushed for cutting EPA staff to about one-third of its size when Trump took office the first time — blames Congress for blunting Trump’s early attempts to gut budgets.
“I think Trump is much more determined this time and he’s in a much better position,” Ebell said. “He has much better people working for him. … And so my hope is that he will be more successful in making massive budget cuts this time.”
For starters, Ebell thinks the Trump administration should close all 10 EPA regional offices, which are spread throughout the country.
“If monitoring of the state agencies is necessary and state agencies are actually doing the work, I think it can be done in one centralized place” with “a lot less manpower and a lot less spending,” Ebell said. He also sees an opportunity to cut “a lot of little programs that have been created and funded that have no basis in legislation or any real purpose.”
That includes “the various environmental justice programs” at EPA, Ebell said. The Trump administration has already moved to terminate environmental justice offices and positions.
Conservative think tanks have offered up a host of ideas the Musk-Trump team could take up.
The Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025 blueprint, for example, suggests eliminating EPA offices including the stand-alone enforcement office, developing a plan to relocate the regional offices and reviewing EPA’s grants program “to ensure that taxpayer funds go to organizations focused on tangible environmental improvements free from political affiliation.” That plan also urges reductions in staff and cuts to duplicative programs.
Musk said ahead of Trump’s inauguration that he saw the government as a “target-rich environment” for savings. “I think we will, we’ll try for $2 trillion,” Musk said of his previously stated goal for spending cuts. “I think that’s like the best-case outcome.”
Bob Perciasepe, who served as EPA deputy administrator during the Obama administration, doesn’t think “here’s a big gold mine over at EPA for these people if they’re serious about what they talking about.”
Or, Perciasepe said, “if they’re not really that serious about finding a trillion dollars, they throw that out there so they can do their mischief, which is disable EPA.”
Much of the money EPA doles out goes to states “to help them implement the existing laws that Congress has passed,” he said. The agency also issues infrastructure grants to state and local governments for water and sewer system improvements. If that’s what they want to cut, Perciasepe said, “I guess they could do it.”
‘Prime targets’
At the Interior Department, “I think that there are a lot of grants that could be reviewed” by Musk’s team, said one former Trump administration Interior official who was granted anonymity to discuss internal agency operations.
But given that “it’s not a lot of money coming out if Interior … I don’t think it’s a priority,” that person said. The Energy Department and EPA, that person added, “are gonna be the ones I think they’re really focused on.”
The Energy and Interior Departments did not respond to requests for comment about whether DOGE employees have landed in their agencies or whether Musk has plans to visit.
A report prepared for DOGE in December by the Cato Institute think tank calls energy and environmental agencies “prime targets for reducing bureaucracy and unnecessary federal involvement in energy markets.”
That report urges Congress to “abolish” the Energy Department, “transfer the nuclear weapons program to a national nuclear weapons agency under the direction of a civilian official in the Department of Defense, and privatize the national laboratories.”
The report also encourages the transfer of some Bureau of Land Management lands to the states and the transfer of some of the “less popular” national parks to state governments.
By starting with agencies that oversee the federal workforce and government spending systems, Perciasepe said, Musk’s team so far has been targeting “the guts” of the government.
“Obviously, a lot of work was done by by some of the nonprofits and think tanks in advance of this,” Perciasepe said. “That’s why they’re going so much quickly this time compared to the first term.”
This reporter can be reached on Signal at r_bravender.93.
