The Department of Government Efficiency effort is entering a new phase, shedding its high-profile and controversial leader Elon Musk while its remaining operatives embed more permanently in government.
Far from it ending, the Trump administration views DOGE's work as central to its vision of remaking the federal bureaucracy in the president's image.
Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and himself a proponent of slashing government spending and bureaucracy, told a House Appropriations Committee hearing earlier this month that a goal would be to have DOGE "far more institutionalized at the actual agency" level moving forward.
"Many DOGE employees and [full-time employees] are at the agencies, working almost as in-house consultants as a part of the agency's leadership," he said. "And I think, you know, the leadership of DOGE is now much more decentralized."
Since January, DOGE staffers have been detailed across the federal government, leading efforts to fire workers, cancel contracts, and obtain access to sensitive data.
Now, many of them have been converted to permanent jobs within the government, and agencies are embracing DOGE's mission, according to NPR's review of personnel movements and interviews with federal employees who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration for speaking about internal matters.
"President Trump and the entire Administration will continue the important mission of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from our federal government on behalf of taxpayers," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, in part, in a statement responding to NPR's questions about the future of DOGE.
Members of Musk's core team have left
Musk was the avatar of DOGE's chainsaw era: boasting of feeding agencies "into the wood chipper," demanding federal employees account for their work in weekly emails or be fired, encouraging them to quit, and brandishing an actual chainsaw on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.
Months later, Musk's bombastic plan to slash the bureaucracy has been blunted by a flurry of legal challenges that allege DOGE overstepped its authority, circumvented privacy laws, and disregarded protocols for shrinking the workforce. Several agencies have backed off demanding weekly email updates from staff. Cabinet secretaries are taking the lead on further mass job cuts — and in some cases are re-hiring to fill DOGE-driven departures that they feel went too far.
At the same time, new hires are being subjected to loyalty tests that entrench some of the DOGE vision into the hiring process. The administration has issued new guidance aimed at "prioritiz[ing] recruitment of individuals committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government," among other characteristics. The hiring plan includes requiring federal job applicants to write essays describing how they will help advance Trump's policy goals.
DOGE has also fallen short of Musk's initial promise to cut $2 trillion in federal spending, and even the $180 billion it's claimed to save has been dogged by inaccuracies, errors, omissions and overstatements.
One software developer who worked for DOGE at the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this year told NPR he was surprised "at how efficient the government was."
"I did not find the federal government to be rife with waste, fraud and abuse," Sahil Lavingia told NPR's All Things Considered. "I was expecting some more easy wins."
Lavingia's access to the VA was abruptly revoked in early May after he gave an interview about his experience working for the DOGE team.
The exodus of DOGE leadership extends beyond Musk, who wore a "Dogefather" t-shirt at his Oval Office sendoff from President Trump, before the two began feuding — albeit briefly — over the Republican tax and spending megabill.
The White House said longtime Musk aide Steve Davis, who was running DOGE's day-to-day operations out of the General Services Administration headquarters, left in late May. Katie Miller, who at one point acted as DOGE spokesperson and is married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, has left to work for Musk.
Many DOGE staffers are settling in for the long haul
DOGE's imprint on the federal government has long extended beyond Musk and his closest advisors.
A number of the young software engineers who were among DOGE's earliest recruits have recently converted from "special government employees" — a time-limited role — to full-time federal workers. That includes Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran, who became regular staffers at the General Services Administration in April and May, according to internal GSA records seen by NPR.
More than three dozen DOGE-affiliated individuals are based at GSA, according to the records, including Nate Cavanaugh, Justin Fox, Justin Aimonetti, Jack Stein, Jonathan Mendelson and Marshall Wood — a small crew of staffers who have been primarily responsible for efforts to embed DOGE at more than three dozen small entities inside, adjacent to and outside of the federal government.
According to multiple current and former GSA staffers in and outside Washington, DOGE staffers have completely taken over parts of GSA's downtown Washington, D.C. office, including the gym and the roof.
Other individuals, many connected to Musk and his companies, who joined the Trump administration as part of the DOGE effort remain in senior agency roles.
That includes Thomas Shedd, a Tesla software engineer who since January has been running the General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Services unit, which develops tech for the government, and in March was also named chief information officer at the Labor Department.
A lawyer who previously represented Musk's SpaceX, Catherine Eschbach, continues working to downsize a federal contracting watchdog at the Labor Department.
At the Department of the Interior, Secretary Doug Burgum has put DOGE representative and former oil executive Tyler Hassen in charge of efforts to cut costs and "create significant efficiencies" at the agency. Hassen's title was initially assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, but the AP reported that was changed in April to "principal deputy assistant secretary" — a position that, unlike assistant secretary, does not require Senate confirmation.
"Hassen is the guy making all of the decisions," said an Interior employee who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation.
"The work of many at the Department, under the direction of President Trump and Secretary Burgum, has saved the government billions of dollars by eliminating numerous unnecessary and wasteful contracts, shutting down redundant programs, and driving operational reforms to boost effectiveness across the agency," a statement from Interior Department spokesperson Charlotte Taylor said, in part.
Among the signs of DOGE's continuing presence in Washington is a weekly basketball game between DOGE staffers and Interior Department employees at the department's fitness center, on the court where former President Obama played when he was in office. Hassen plays for the Interior side, according to the DOI employee.
A recent game featured another senior DOGE figure, the employee said: Airbnb founder and Musk associate Joe Gebbia, who is leading DOGE's overhaul and digitization of the federal employee retirement system at the Office of Personnel Management.
DOGE is now 'like a way of life'
Some agency leaders have embraced DOGE-inspired cost-cutting and technology overhaul efforts.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, grant awards now have to undergo an additional round of review by DOGE staff before they can be released — even after they've been approved by CDC program managers and the chief of staff, according to an employee who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation for speaking publicly.
"The money is there, but it's not actually doing anything useful unless you've given it to the people who can actually spend the money," the CDC employee said.
"The Defend the Spend initiative is a department-wide effort to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively, transparently, and in alignment with this administration," Department of Health and Human Services press secretary Emily G. Hilliard said in a statement. "As part of this oversight, grant recipients may be asked to provide additional information, which is essential to preventing waste, fraud, and abuse. HHS is committed to working [with] all grantees to resolve outstanding issues as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest standards of accountability."
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano told The Wall Street Journal recently that he's relying on DOGE as "a resource" to help make the agency "a digital-first organization" by relying more heavily on technology and artificial intelligence.
The Internal Revenue Service is also leaning into AI as part of nine "priority initiatives" aimed at modernizing the agency's use of technology, according to an internal memo from May seen by NPR. That includes using AI to help customer services representatives access taxpayer data and to verify compliance.
In addition, the IRS is also working with data-mining firm Palantir to build a centralized way of accessing all the agency's data, according to the memo. Former Palantir employees have raised alarm about contracts between Palantir and other federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to analyze data in support of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
The IRS didn't respond to NPR's request for comment.
Meanwhile, DOGE's own efforts to amass and consolidate sensitive government data continues. The Supreme Court recently handed DOGE a pair of victories in ongoing lawsuits challenging potential violations of federal privacy law.
The high court removed a block on DOGE's access to personal information held by the Social Security Administration, including Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, and family court information, and separately said DOGE does not have to turn over documents to a watchdog group suing to unveil information about DOGE's activities.
While dozens of legal challenges to DOGE and Trump administration actions make their way through the courts, Musk remained optimistic about the project's enduring legacy at his farewell press conference with Trump on May 30.
"This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning," Musk said. "The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only grow stronger. I liken it to a sort of Buddhism — it's like a way of life."
Do you have information about DOGE's ongoing work across federal agencies? Reach out to the authors through encrypted communications on Signal. Shannon Bond is available on Signal at shannonbond.01. Stephen Fowler is at stphnfwlr.25. Please use a nonwork device.
NPR's Jenna McLaughlin and Selena Simmons-Duffin contributed to this report.
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