Will Trump’s DOGE eat Elon Musk for dinner?

Doge is the acronym for the United States Department for Government Efficiency. Mired in controversy, it was created with so much swagger by President Donald Trump at the start of his non-consecutive second term last January 20. DOGE has been synonymous with Elon Musk. As president it was within Trump’s remit to create a new government department, but he shares this power with the US Congress [parliament] which should ordinarily give such institutions legal teeth through legislation. The president appoints the heads of the departments with some of the nominees requiring screening and confirmation by the senate, the generally regarded upper chamber of the legislature . The departments are part of the executive branch of government, and are responsible for implementing specific policies and programmes. Prominent departments in the US federal government include Department of State which is responsible for foreign policy and international relations; Department of Defence for national defence and military operations; Department of Education for education policy and programmes [Trump says he will scrap it, anyway]; and, Department of Health and Human Services which is charged with healthcare and social services. Though the executive and legislative branches share in responsibilities in creating departments, only the Congress has the authority to abolish departments through legislation. However, the president can reorganise or merge departments through executive orders though that is subject to Congressional oversight. But all these fanciful arrangements backed by law in some cases and convention in others were before the second coming of Donald Trump.

Some of the processes and conventions that had been taken as given have been casually upended by the new sheriff in town. Trump may have been emboldened by the fact that while he was out of power and office, and was facing trial for some alleged wrongdoings in his first incarnation as president, the US Supreme Court [SCOTUS] ruled that a president could not be tried for any offences he might have committed in the course of his official duty. The controversial ruling by the SCOTUS appears to fly in the face of the American Constitution which prescribed equality before the law. The Constitution did not explicitly state that ‘nobody is above the law’, but it contains principles that imply equality under the law, that was until the SCOTUS ruled otherwise in 2024. Before then it was widely believed that the Constitution was based on the rule of law, which means that everyone, including government officials, is subject to the law. The 14th equal protection clause prescribes that no state shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws’. And this clause has been interpreted to mean that individuals should be treated equally under the law. In addition, the grundnorm system of checks and balances was supposedly designed to ensure that no one branch of the US government has absolute power. The intent should be to help curb abuses of authority. So, though the phrase that ‘nobody is above the law’ was not directly stated in the Constitution, it had been a fundamental principle of the 249 years old American democracy, until it seems not to be so again because of Trump.

DOGE was created as a US government department by Trump on January 20 via an executive order. It was Trump’s first day in office and it was among the more than allegedly 100 executive orders signed by the president that day alone. Some watchers of the American presidency claimed that the action was unprecedented. Tech billionaire who’s the owner of the e-vehicle company Tesla, and SpaceX, among others, Elon Musk, was tapped to head the new agency. Opponents derisively describe Musk as the man who bought the presidency for Trump by his injection of almost $300 million into Trump’s campaign. He was an early endorser of Triumph for president. He was prominent in stomping for him on the campaign trail. He virtually lived with Trump in Mar-a-Lago in the weeks before the November 5, 2024 presidential election. He had a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration on January 20. And also lived with Trump in the White House in the days after the inauguration. He attended cabinet meetings while the bromance lasted. Musk was an unrepentant advocate for small government and curbing alleged waste in the public sector. He rails against subsidies but ironically his businesses ranked very high in receiving subsidies from the government. So in the eyes of Trump, Elon Musk was the unrivaled man for the job of rolling back the government, or in their words cutting out ‘fraud, waste, and abuse’ in government operations. So DOGE under Musk was mandated to reduce public expenditures by reviewing government contracts, eliminating unnecessary spending, and cutting bureaucratic red tape; to detect fraud by identifying and preventing fraudulent activities in federal spending, ensuring transparency and accountability; to streamline processes through the deployment of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to automate and accelerate administrative processes; and, to enhance productivity by restructuring federal agencies to ensure higher productivity and transparency. To detractors the only ‘achievement’ of Musk in his 130 days long employment in government was taking and brandishing a chainsaw at a public event to dramatise how he intended to deal a lasting and deadly blow to the US federal government bureaucracy. It was a jarring spectacle. By the way, Trump employed Musk as a special adviser to avoid his being required to be screened by the senate. It was feared that it would’ve been a very contentious screening that the narrow majority of the ruling Republican Party may not save him. Musk was that toxic to some politicians across the aisle.

mortal rival in the war for global supremacy. These are men with big egos. But they will settle because they have so much to lose if their face-off spirals out of control. However, settling for now will not prevent them from quarreling again. Soon. And probably throughout the presidency of Donald J. Trump in the next three and half years. The setting up of the America Party by Musk to rival the traditional two-party system in the US – Democrats and Republicans – will not make the prospects of future frictions any better. Indeed, Musk could just be opening multiple battle fronts against traditional and professional politicians in the US. That could prove an Achilles heel for him. For over 150 years no third political party has produced a president of the United States. It may not be about to change in spite of the enormous wealth of Elon Musk, and what appears to be the appetite of Americans for a change.