The inaptly named Department of Government Efficiency officially wound down its operations this summer — with no public accounting of its operations. But a new Washington Post report suggests that the rapacious spirit of DOGE lives on in a new form.
Many former employees of the Elon Musk-led initiative are apparently raking in cash in the private sector by milking their extraordinary access to the federal government, the Post reports. The development underscores how much the Trump era has been defined by destroying the line between the public and private sectors, thus encouraging opportunists to see public resources as goods to be pillaged.
DOGE, which was spearheaded by tech magnate Musk, was packed with young, inexperienced tech workers who often knew nothing about the government before they entered it and sought to transform it. Since then, the Post reports, “roughly two dozen former DOGE staffers have parlayed their government experience into relevant private-sector jobs or investments — becoming founders, securing CEO positions or senior executive roles, amassing large stakes in start-ups looking to win government contracts or approvals, or taking the skills developed at DOGE to the private sector.”
DOGE has functioned as an attack on the very idea of the common good.
Due to the level of government access they had, some of them are having real success with garnering investment: The Post reports that “start-ups founded by, or with key investment from, DOGE alumni have raised at least half a billion dollars in funding.” According to the Post, former DOGE workers have emphasized their government experience in pitches to investors. Their companies include firms that operate in cybersecurity, defense technology and artificial intelligence, and expect to sell services to government agencies.
We don’t know if these companies will succeed or lock down federal contracts. But what we do know is that these alumni represent yet another shameful legacy of DOGE.
In every sense, DOGE has functioned as an attack on the very idea of the common good. DOGE failed at its sole ostensible goal of cutting federal spending, instead presiding over a spending increase. But what it did do was degrade social services that help those in need, and helped redistribute wealth upward. Due to their cuts and firings, the administration of Social Security was wrecked. The U.S. Agency for International Development, whose aid keeps millions of people in the poorest parts of the world alive, was shuttered. Civil servants with critical policy specialties that help make the government work well were laid off en masse across federal agencies. Meanwhile corporations and the rich received a huge gift with reductions to the IRS’ enforcement capacity, which helps crack down on wealthy tax cheats.
After wrapping up their tour of destruction, the DOGE crowd has now rapidly pivoted to looting. Their connections have positioned them to become lobbyists on steroids, with an exceptional potential to secure contracts and influence the enactment of federal policy, at least as long as Trump remains in office.
The DOGE entrepreneurs also exhibit a Trumpian appetite for innovation in corruption. Just as President Donald Trump has exploited loopholes that the founders and previous generations of reformers did not anticipate as he enriches himself through his office, the former DOGE employees are breaking new ground in conflicts of interest.
“The idea that someone might help form a new company to build a mechanism to convert political influence into billions of dollars didn’t occur to the people who have authored the ethics laws that in theory protect the American public,” Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest watchdog, told me in an email. New laws will need to be passed to close these loopholes, Hauser said.
The only ethics that govern this set are ruthless self-interest and a commitment to take whatever one can get away with. Unfortunately they’ve been able to get away with quite a lot.
The post The ghost of DOGE is still haunting Washington appeared first on MS NOW.
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