EP 14: The Efficiency Illusion - Unmasking DOGE

Elon Musk’s time at the Department of Government Efficiency made headlines — but the real story of DOGE goes beyond the chainsaws and theatrics. In this episode, we unpack how a program sold as “efficiency” quietly reshaped the role of government, shifted public power into private hands, and left a legacy that’s still unfolding today. 

Transcript

Raheel Khan: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Khannecting the Dots. If you caught my last episode, you may remember I talked about the Republican's Big Beautiful Bill. You know the one that turned out to be a lot less beautiful than advertised? Well, today I'm shifting focus to another Trump era program that followed a similar playbook, DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. This agency was billed as fighting waste and helping ordinary Americans. As usual, that's not quite how it played out. Now you might be thinking, isn't DOGE old news? Didn't Musk leave months ago? If only. The truth is, the impact of Musk's time at DOGE is still being felt across the US and the program itself isn't dead. It's just under new management and arguably more dangerous than ever. So today, let's revisit what DOGE was, what it was billed as, and what impact it had on everyday Americans. First and foremost though, let's listen to how the program was sold. That was the sales pitch designed to appeal to people fed up with Washington dysfunction. But behind the rally crowds and chainsaw stunts, something else was happening. The rich found a new way to get richer while everyday Americans lost programs that had benefited them for years. As with many things in Trump, 2.0, DOGE was launched with a lot of fanfare, headlines, bold speeches, and plenty of stagecraft. The marketing was simple but effective. The government has been bloated and wasteful for years. We're gonna cut it down to size. An efficient government? Eliminate waste? The promise of$2 trillion in savings by rooting out fraud in Medicaid, social Security, Medicare, and other bloated government programs? These were things people could get behind, and they did. Polls showed majority support. Even Democrats agreed that federal spending needed better scrutiny. Trump signed the executive order creating DOGE on January 20th, and to lead it, he picked Elon Musk. A choice that seemed logical on the surface. Who better to cut government inefficiency than a successful businessman and the world's richest man? He would bring his business, know-how to the government and make it as efficient as his companies. Of course, there was that little fact. Musk had just spent nearly$300 million getting Trump and his allies elected. The largest known political donation in American history. Okay, so maybe he bought his way into government, but surely he knew what he was doing right? Turns out he did, but for himself, not so much for the country. From the start, there were reports of massive conflicts of interest. Many of the agencies DOGE targeted, NASA, the FAA, Treasury, the Consumer Financial Production Bureau, either regulated Musks' companies or represented potential privatization and business opportunities. Meanwhile, programs serving working families got cut with little analysis of whether they actually worked. Before we dive into what DOGE actually did, let's talk about what genuine government reform looks like. Because it's been done before and it looked very different. In the nineties, president Clinton tasked Vice President Gore with something called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Like DOGE it promised to make government work better and cost less. Unlike DOGE, it actually succeeded. Elaine Kamarck ran that program and now works at the Brookings Institution. In an interview with NPR, her assessment of DOGE was blunt."We cut that and they cut muscle. It's as simple as that." Here's how the Clinton era approach differed. They took six months digging in, talking with career public servants, figuring out where waste really was and where cuts would hurt. They worked with people who actually understood what each program did. When they found inefficient laws, they worked with Congress to change them. Most lawmakers agreed because the proposals made sense and were backed by evidence. Clinton eliminated over 400,000 federal positions, but he did it strategically over seven years. Targeting middle management while preserving the services people actually relied on. Compare that to the nearly 300,000 government related jobs cut in 2025 alone. A number cited by Forbes as a total impact from DOGE driven layoffs and contractor cuts. These cuts have weakened the sense of government functions and raised serious concerns about stability and public services. Clinton's results: four consecutive budget surpluses. The national debt compared to the size of the economy shrank by a third. The only balanced budgets since 1969. Kamarck's team faced zero lawsuits because they followed the law and actually improved how things worked. DOGE, on the other hand, faced dozens of lawsuits from day one. Even some Republican senators criticized the chaos. The difference wasn't just about method, it was about philosophy. Clinton's team believed government could work better while still serving people. But that takes patience, evidence, and a willingness to fix what's broken, not just break what works. The story DOGE told the public was bold, massive savings, fraud uncovered government, finally working right. But, when independent experts, journalists, and former government officials looked closer, the reality was far less impressive. In one of his most audacious claims, Musk appeared in the Oval Office and said there were people about 150 years old, even over 200, collecting social security payments. Trump repeated this in rallies and even in the State of the Union claiming that tens of millions of dead people were getting benefits. It sounded shocking. The implication that social security was riddled with fraud and only DOGE had uncovered it. But here's what actually happened. DOGE sent in what Musk called the DOGE kids, mostly software engineers, aged 19 to 24 with no government experience. They combed through social security's databases and saw millions of people listed as over 100 years old. They assumed it was fraud. Michael Astrue, who ran Social Security under both Bush and Obama was blunt."The big claims are just flat out wrong. It's just a product of sending in a bunch of 20 year olds with laptops who don't understand what they're seeing." What they actually found were placeholder dates in very old records. When death dates were missing often because someone died before electronic reporting existed, the system defaulted to numbers that made them appear impossibly old. Social Security already knew about it. Their own inspector general had flagged this years earlier. And out of millions of old records, only about 44,000 were receiving benefits, and most of those had documentation proving they were alive. Instead of admitting the mistake, Musk double down. Joking about vampires collecting social security. Then there was DOGE's so-called wall of receipts. Their website, claiming billions in savings from canceled government contracts. This was supposed to be the main evidence of their success, how they proved to the public they were accomplishing their mission. But there was a problem, the numbers just didn't add up. Multiple news outlets investigated CBS, Fortune, the New York Times, NPR, PBS, among others. Here's what they found. DOGE claimed$8 billion in savings from canceling an$8 million contract. They listed the same$650 million contract three times triple counting the savings. They claimed$232 million from ending a contract worth just$560,000. They even took credit for canceling a$1.9 billion contract that Biden had already canceled. And one CEO When asked by PBS about his$10 million canceled contract, responded,"we never had a contract. It never happened." Turns out it was a$100,000 credit line that was never signed and never executed. NPR estimated that DOGE's total claim of$65 billion in savings was actually closer to$2.3 billion, and even that was probably inflated. When those errors came to light. DOGE quietly deleted over 1000 contracts from their website, wiping out at least$4 billion in claimed savings. But the press conferences kept happening. The big numbers kept flashing. So that begs the question, were these just sloppy mistakes or were they deliberate distortions designed to cover up something else? Let's look at who actually benefited from DOGE because it wasn't the American people. While DOGE bragged about saving billions, Musk's companies were securing record breaking government contracts. And Federal ethics rules supposed to prevent officials from making decisions that benefit their businesses. Musk did the opposite. His companies have received at least$38 billion in contracts, loans, and subsidies over the past two decades. In 2024 alone, Tesla and SpaceX pulled in over$15 billion, and during DOGE's 130 day run, that number surged. Take the FAA; while, DOGE was firing hundreds of employees. Musk pushed them to cancel a$2 billion Verizon contract and switch to starlink. He tweeted on Monday that Verizon was putting air travelers at serious risk. By Thursday, 4,000 starlink terminals were shipping to FAA offices. The Washington Post even reported that Starlink was being pushed on foreign nations as part of the Trump administration's tariff negotiations. At NASA, a$100 million SpaceX contract dropped just weeks after Musk took charge. DOGE staff embedded inside NASA also pushed for early dismantling of the International Space Station. A task SpaceX had already been contracted to manage. Most concerning though DOGE gained access to the treasury's payment system. That's the system that processes over$6 trillion annually. That gave Musk's team insider knowledge about government contracts, payment schedules, and competitor relationships. Another Washington Post investigation found DOGE had accessed sensitive financial data across seven major federal departments containing competitors trade secrets and sensitive regulatory information. One aerospace executive said"So much of what we submit to the government is competitively sensitive. We assume it's protected. Now we feel vulnerable." Private companies held emergency meetings, but no one went public. Because they were afraid their own contracts would get canceled. And it wasn't just Musk. Working with Russell Vought Trump's budget director and architect of Project 2025, DOGE built a playbook for privatizing the public sector step by step: fire experienced public workers. Let services deteriorate. Generate complaints about inefficiency. Propose private sector solutions. Then award contracts to friendly companies. And that last part, it's what allowed entire sectors of industry to flourish under DOGE Business Insider reported that companies like Palantir and Wells Fargo benefited handsomely. Palantir picked up fraud detection contracts for social security and Medicaid. Wells Fargo gained from weakened consumer protections as watchdog agencies were hollowed out. And defense contractors, according to the Guardian, saw expanded budgets and fewer restrictions as DOGE branded oversight offices, redundant. MSN reported that Social Security Modernization was handed to private firms with ties to major GOP donors. Work that used to be done inside the agency. DOGE wasn't just enriching Elon Musk. It was building an entire DOGE economy, rewarding well connected firms and punishing, dissent. And when asked about conflicts of interest, the White House said it was up to Musk himself to decide when to recuse. That isn't just the fox guarding the hen house, it's allowing the fox to be the one issuing the meal tickets. While Musk's companies and their allies were cashing in. DOGE's cuts hit real people. Hard. Let's talk about what those efficiencies actually meant. DOGE cut$1 billion in funding that went directly to food banks. Feeding South Florida lost 40% of its budget. That's$15 million gone overnight. Their CEO told CBS."We've been seeing empty racks since February. These cuts have really made an impact on family's ability to thrive." At the same time DOGE announced plans to cut up to 7,000 social Security jobs, 12% of the entire workforce, and shut down dozens of field offices. Think about that for a minute. The disability determination process already took 236 days On average. More than a million people were waiting for appeals. And tens of thousands were dying while they waited. Research shows that when local Social Security offices close, disability benefit approvals dropped 13%. Not because fewer people need help, but because the system becomes too hard to navigate. At the VA, DOGE cut$2 billion across hundreds of contracts. Some of those contracts were tied to the PACT Act, the law that expanded healthcare for veterans with toxic exposure. These are people who served this country, and got sick because of it. DOGE decided their care was inefficient. The education department lost nearly 2000 employees. DOGE also slashed$4 billion in medical research grants. Even though every dollar invested in that research returns$2.50 in economic activity and supports over 400,000 jobs. Without government funding for research, private companies will take over and monetize any new research findings. A boon for them for sure, but terrible for everyday citizens. According to the citizens for responsibility and ethics, DOGE's direct cuts to federal positions, eliminated more than 50,000 jobs and destroyed$10 billion in economic activity. But that's just part of the picture. Like I mentioned earlier, broader policies under DOGE triggered cascading job losses across contractors and state administered programs. Bringing the total estimated impact close to 300,000 jobs. For many communities, this wasn't about leaner government, it was about lost livelihoods, closed offices, and vital public services simply disappearing. Meanwhile, Musk's companies secured$5 for every$1 DOGE claimed to cut. Let that sink in. For every dollar supposedly saved$5 flowed to companies connected to the guy running the operation. Now, here's the thing. This story doesn't end when Elon Musk left in May. DOGE didn't disappear. It evolved. On May 30th, trump held a ceremonial sendoff and gave Musk a commemorative key. Musk's parting words."The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government". By the time he left, his companies had secured billions in new contracts, and the agencies meant to regulate them, regulate him were gutted. But most importantly, he left behind a template others could follow. Russell Vought has now completely taken over. Where Musk brought chaos and chainsaws. Vought brought spreadsheets and strategy. He embedded mini DOGE's across the federal government. Full-time insiders working at the very agencies they're supposed to dismantle. The 2026 federal budget includes funding to make those DOGE operatives permanent in-house consultants with institutional staying power. And it's not just Washington, at least 26 states have created their own versions of DOGE. Florida launched of DOGE task force targeting things like transportation, surtax and climate change mitigation efforts in democratic leaning areas of the state. Texas created"lone star efficiency". They're using audits, fines, and legal threats to get everything from green energy programs to worker protections. And remember, most states already have to balance their budgets. This isn't about spending, it's about power and cutting the program some people simply don't want to exist. The model is spreading because it works. Not for taxpayers, but for the people who profit when government fails. So did DOGE accomplish its mission? Here's what's important to remember. Efficiency was never the goal. As critics and protestors pointed out, DOGE wasn't about better government. It was about consolidation of power and profit. In that sense, it wasn't a policy failure. It was a massive success. When a billionaire spends$300 million to help elect a president, then gets hand control over the very agencies that regulate his business. That's not reform, that's a transaction. And it worked exactly as intended. Musk and Republican allies walked away with billions in new contracts. agencies that might challenge their interests were gutted. Programs that serve everyday Americans were cut to pay for it. The inefficiency wasn't in government. It was in the fact that public resources weren't flowing to private interests fast enough. And while that machine quietly ran in the background, the spectacle unfolded upfront, the tweets, the chainsaws, the chaos, the public fallout. That's where the attention went, by design. Russell Vought took advantage of those headlines to rewire the system to evolve DOGE and spread it quietly throughout the bureaucracy. Now it's turning up everywhere in state legislatures, in budget bills and the policies of think tanks pushing the same privatization agenda. The protests that erupted during Musk's tenure were a critical response. They proved that people were watching and willing to speak out, but the next phase of DOGE isn't loud. It's quiet, calculated, and designed to endure, and it's not alone. From DOGE to the Big Beautiful Bill, the pattern is the same. Shrink public institutions, shift control, rebrand it as reform, then move on before the public catches up. That's why we can't afford to disengage. Staying alert isn't easy in a media environment built to exhaust us, but the stakes are real and this time they're structural. What we normalize now will shape government for decades. Over the next few weeks, I'm gonna dig into three agencies, gutted by DOGE, U-S-A-I-D, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Education. These weren't random targets. Each one served millions of people or stood in the way of powerful private interests. USAID i's global aid program, stabilize regions, open markets, and quietly supported US businesses. CFPB cut into the profits of predatory lenders and the Department of Education challenged for profit schools and private equity. We'll see how DOGE's cuts to U-S-A-I-D weakened Global Health and Food Systems and undermine US influence. How changes that the CFPB left consumers more exposed to financial abuse. And how dismantling the education department sends profits to corporations while closing doors for students. Because behind every so-called efficiency is a real human cost and real corporate profit. Thank you for listening. If this episode helped you see connections you hadn't noticed before, please share it with someone who you think might benefit. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Consider leaving a review. Until next time, stay curious, stay critical, and stay connected.