The announcement triggered a meme fest on social media. Reacting to Trump’s announcement, Musk on X wrote, “Department of Government Efficiency. The merch will be (fire emojis).” Many X users with the help of AI suggested some eye-catchy logos featuring the Shibu Inu dog from the Doge cryptocurrency memes for Musk and Ramaswamy’s department which Musk shared on his accounts. Various online surveys and media organisations have acknowledged Doge as one of the most significant Internet memes of the 2010s.
Musk and Ramaswamy are all charged up
“DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse. Americans voted for drastic government reform & they deserve to be part of fixing it,” Ramaswamy wrote on X after his appointment.
“Over the last 2 years, the Supreme Court has ruled that the administrative state is behaving in wildly unlawful ways. But slapping the bureaucracy on the wrist won’t solve the problem, the only right answer is a massive downsizing,” he wrote in another post. Ramaswamy’s pinned post gives away the aggressive plans of the duo: “We will not go gently, @elonmusk”
“Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency? In 2020, the U.S. government spent $4.5 million to spray alcoholic rats with bobcat urine,” said a post shared by Musk.
“DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse. Americans voted for drastic government reform & they deserve to be part of fixing it,” Musk said.Emphasising the transparent functioning of DOGE, Musk wrote: “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.”
What is Trump’s second Manhattan Project?
DOGE underscores Musk and Ramaswamy’s mission: dismantling bureaucracy, slashing excessive regulations, and transforming the vast apparatus of federal governance into a streamlined model of efficiency.
Trump’s characterization of DOGE as the “Manhattan Project” evokes one of the most significant endeavors of the 20th century: the clandestine World War II initiative that developed the atomic bomb. The original Manhattan Project was marked by its blend of military urgency, scientific ingenuity, and sweeping collaboration among the brightest minds of its era. It changed the course of global conflict and demonstrated the profound capabilities of American innovation when pushed to the limit.
In the context of Trump’s announcement, the comparison speaks to the scale and transformative potential he envisions for government reform. Just as the original project redefined power on the global stage, DOGE aspires to redefine the US government’s relationship with its citizens by eliminating inefficiencies and fostering a more responsive, accountable administration. Whether the audacious vision of Musk and Ramaswamy will match the historical weight of its namesake remains an open question, but the ambition is unmistakable.
Trump’s directive sets a clear deadline for DOGE: July 4, 2026. The symbolic timeline coincides with the nation’s 250th anniversary, positioning DOGE’s success as a patriotic milestone. The duo’s work will be aligned with the Office of Management and Budget, leveraging private-sector expertise to seek out inefficiencies in the $6.5 trillion annual federal spending.
Can the DOGE bite?
During the election campaign, Musk had boldly claimed he could cut over $2 trillion state spending. The stakes and expectations for the new department are monumental. DOGE’s implementation strategy, its impact on existing agencies, and its reception by career bureaucrats will be closely watched. Skeptics point out that prior reform efforts have struggled against entrenched interests and systemic inertia, but proponents argue that DOGE’s external structure may enable it to bypass traditional roadblocks.
Dan Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, wrote in TOI that not only Musk’s biggest promises – cutting $2 trillion in spending – would be difficult or impossible to carry out, but even smaller cuts in spending or staff numbers will be hard to achieve. “… the sort of large-scale changes that have been promised – like cutting trillions from the budget or firing swathes of federal workers – would require buy-in not just from sceptical Senate Republicans, but also from hostile Senate Democrats. Past efforts to try and bypass Congress on matters like these, such as Nixon’s use of impoundment to cut funding for programmes he didn’t like by refusing to spend money allocated by Congress, have fallen short. Moreover, any attempt to circumvent Congress in areas it cares about tends to poison relations between the President and Congress, making it hard for him to get anything passed later on,” Cassino wrote.
Speaking at The Economic Club of New York Tuesday, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that Musk would be lucky to find $200 billion in federal budget cuts since the scope for curbing waste is limited, CNN reported. Glenn Hubbard, an economist and former dean of Columbia University’s Business School, said it would be very challenging to slash that much spending if interest expenses, entitlement programs and defense were off limits. “It’s just mathematically impossible to find $2 trillion,” Hubbard, a former chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration, said at the Economic Club.
(With inputs from TOI and agencies)