DOGE: Cutting the Agencies That Were Investigating Elon Musk

Elon Musk was appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in January 2025 while simultaneously serving as CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X. A memorandum from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published in April 2025 documented that Musk's companies collectively held approximately $38 billion in federal contracts, grants, and loans — including roughly $15 billion invested in SpaceX by NASA and approximately $9.5 billion in active Department of Defense contracts for SpaceX launch services.

The conflict deepens when examining which agencies DOGE targeted. The National Labor Relations Board had an active complaint against SpaceX alleging the company illegally fired workers who signed an open letter criticizing Musk. DOGE directed significant cuts to NLRB staffing and operations. The Securities and Exchange Commission had ongoing investigations into Tesla's disclosure practices related to Musk's Twitter acquisition. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates SpaceX's launch operations, faced scrutiny and staffing pressures from the DOGE process. The pattern — agencies regulating Musk's businesses face disruption under the entity Musk leads — is documented in congressional reporting and independent journalism.

The USAID cuts represent the most consequential decision in DOGE's operational history. USAID administers the PEPFAR program (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which has provided HIV/AIDS treatment to over 20 million people globally and is credited with saving millions of lives since 2003. USAID also funds malaria prevention and treatment programs, tuberculosis treatment, maternal health programs, and emergency food assistance. An analysis by global health researchers estimated that cuts to USAID programs at the level implemented in early 2025 could result in hundreds of thousands to over a million preventable deaths per year — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa — from AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and malnutrition. These deaths do not appear on any balance sheet that DOGE presents.

DOGE's claimed savings figures have not withstood independent scrutiny. The White House claimed early DOGE actions would save hundreds of billions of dollars; independent analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and outside economists found the actual documented savings were a fraction of claimed figures, with significant double-counting and the inclusion of claimed savings from contracts and grants that had already been obligated and would need to be legally unwound at additional cost.

The fundamental conflict of interest in DOGE's design — a private citizen with tens of billions of dollars in government contracts leading an effort to restructure the agencies that oversee him, with no independent oversight board, no ethics compliance officer, and no recusal mechanism — is without precedent in the history of the executive branch.