Elon Built the DOGE Rocket and It’s Going To Keep Flying

COMMENTARY Budget and Spending

Elon Built the DOGE Rocket and It’s Going To Keep Flying

Jun 3, 2025 3 min read
COMMENTARY BY
E.J. Antoni, PhD

Chief Economist, and Richard Aster Fellow, Hermann Center

E.J. Antoni is the Chief Economist, and Richard Aster Fellow, in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.
Elon Musk looks on during a news conference with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2025. ALLISON ROBBERT / AFP / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

Elon Musk has led the Department of Government Efficiency to incredible success in a mere four months, exposing hundreds of billions of dollars in government waste.

By making the American public aware of how their tax dollars are being wasted, political pressure was created to stop that waste.

To realize the hundreds of billions of dollars in potential cuts that DOGE has already identified will require additional recission packages and new legislation.

Elon Musk has led the Department of Government Efficiency to incredible success in a mere four months, exposing hundreds of billions of dollars in government waste. However, with his tenure as a special government employee ending, what becomes of DOGE and the waste it’s identified? What about Tesla and SpaceX? The answers to all these questions are incredibly positive.

Musk’s success in so many fields is no accident. The man has an uncanny ability not only as an executive who optimizes institutions and procedures, but also as a delegator. After he gets a project going, he expertly selects someone to take his place, freeing himself up for other ventures.

This explains why Musk is able to run so many different, but still wildly successful businesses, including Tesla, Starlink, X Corporation, the Boring Company, Neuralink, and others. He consistently replaces himself with capable people who can take over operations in his stead.

This model of leadership handoff in the private sector has translated to the public sector with DOGE, so the American people should anticipate continued success from the Department, even now that Mr. Musk has departed.

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DOGE has made remarkable progress, yet they’ve still only scratched the surface. The reality is that the federal budget is almost $7.5 trillion, and it’ll take a considerable amount of time for the DOGE crew to work their way through it all.

That said, the early progress made by Mr. Musk specifically and DOGE broadly is all the more remarkable because of all the roadblocks thrown in their way. Activist judges were constantly ordering a halt to DOGE’s activities, while apparatchiks left over from the Biden administration purposely hid information and tried to torpedo DOGE’s investigations.

As each roadblock is removed, however, the pace at which DOGE works through the federal budget is steadily increasing, and that will continue even after Mr. Musk’s departure. This is not the end of a book, but simply a new chapter.

DOGE has been successful in two key areas. First, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the Department has cast blindingly bright light on all manner of abuse, corruption, fraud, and waste—all of which the political establishment would have liked to have kept hidden from public view.

By making the American public aware of how their tax dollars are being wasted, political pressure was created to stop that waste. But it all required knowledge of the problem.

Before DOGE, for example, there was no proof that over 12.3 million people were 120 years old or older in the Social Security system, a clear sign of fraud. They have now been correctly labeled as deceased to prevent illegitimate payments.

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Likewise, the public was completely unaware that the Treasury Department was distributing money with no way of tracking where it was going. Because of DOGE, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve now label every payment, so the spending of tax dollars can be tracked. While some of the waste identified by DOGE can simply be ended by executive action, much of it will need to be clawed back by Congress. To that end, DOGE cuts will begin to be codified into law as early as next week when the White House begins sending recission packages to Congress, the first of which will be over $9 billion.

That’s a good start, but only a start with the aforementioned $7-trillion-plus budget. To realize the hundreds of billions of dollars in potential cuts that DOGE has already identified (and much more in anticipated cuts) will require additional recission packages—and in some cases, new legislation.

As for Mr. Musk and his many companies, they have bright futures because of their leader’s proven track record of success. While companies like Tesla have seen turbulent stock prices over the past few months, that has largely mirrored the broader stock market, as opposed to being a reflection on Tesla’s valuation specifically.

Furthermore, Tesla’s share price has risen 60% since failed vice-presidential candidate Tim Waltz infamously mocked the previous decline in Tesla’s share price. Who’s laughing now?

Whether it’s Tesla, DOGE, or X Corporation, the future looks very bright. Mr. Musk has a real knack for building both metaphorical and literal rocket ships.

This piece originally appeared in Fox News

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