Musk's rapid-fire cuts draw challenges, questions
Elon Musk, in the Oval Office with with his son, X, is under instructions from President Donald Trump to significantly reduce the size of the federal government. Credit: The Washington Post/Jabin Botsford
On his first day back as president, Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency to dramatically shrink the size of government, and in its first month of operation it has cut the federal workforce by an estimated 200,000 employees.
Known by its acronym DOGE and led by billionaire Elon Musk, the agency began sending out teams on Feb. 1 to sift through agencies' staffing and sometimes access sensitive data, and 12 days later, the firing of thousands of probationary employees with no job protection began.
Trump and Musk’s swift freezing of government-funded programs and firing of the people who help run them has won applause among Republicans and condemnation by Democrats — and led to dozens of lawsuits and several judicial temporary restraining orders.
