Elon Musk's DOGE Scrapped 250K Jobs, Leaving Lasting Government Damage

The federal government faces lasting damage from the short-lived but disruptive tenure of President Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which operated for just four months under billionaire Elon Musk. Led by Musk, the initiative resulted in the loss or departure of over 250,000 federal employees, including critical roles such as nuclear safety engineers, hurricane researchers, and cybersecurity experts. The agency also allegedly compromised sensitive government data, including Social Security Administration records, by transferring information to private cloud servers, raising concerns about the security of Americans’ personal data.

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and former director of President Bill Clinton’s “Reinventing Government” initiative, has warned of the long-term risks posed by DOGE’s actions. In her recent report for the think tank Third Way, titled “The DOGE Time Bombs,” she highlights the potential consequences of the agency’s abrupt and unstructured approach to federal workforce reductions. Kamarck emphasizes that DOGE’s methods lacked strategic planning and disregarded the functional roles of the agencies it targeted.

During a recent interview, Kamarck contrasted DOGE’s approach with the Clinton administration’s “Reinventing Government” initiative, which emphasized agency-by-agency analysis to improve efficiency and service delivery. Unlike DOGE, which relied on algorithms and indiscriminate cuts, the Clinton-era initiative leveraged technology, such as the early internet, to modernize government operations while maintaining service quality. For example, the initiative streamlined passport applications by transitioning them online, reducing wait times and improving accessibility.

Kamarck criticized DOGE’s random targeting of federal employees, particularly in critical areas like air traffic control. Rather than directly cutting air traffic controllers, DOGE eliminated support staff who maintained essential systems such as security, communications, and radar. This approach, she argued, undermined the ability of air traffic controllers to perform their duties safely and efficiently.

She also dismissed the notion that DOGE achieved any defensible outcomes, describing its methods as “too random and too wild.” The initiative folded quickly, with Musk departing in spring 2025 and most personnel leaving shortly thereafter. Kamarck noted that while DOGE recruited individuals with high-tech backgrounds, their efforts were misdirected, focusing on indiscriminate cuts rather than addressing the government’s actual IT challenges.

Kamarck contrasted DOGE’s small team of 128 members with the 400 personnel recruited for “Reinventing Government,” who were seconded from various agencies without prior ties to their assigned departments. This structure allowed for objective assessments of performance issues and the redesign of bureaucratic processes to improve efficiency.

The report “The DOGE Time Bombs” identifies six critical areas where the dismantling of federal infrastructure has created immediate and long-term risks to public health and safety. Among the most pressing concerns is the delayed response to foodborne illness outbreaks, such as the recent lettuce-related contamination. Kamarck noted that tracing the source of such outbreaks typically requires intensive, people-driven investigations, a process that becomes significantly harder when experts in epidemiology and public health are removed from their roles.

Similarly, the dismantling of infrastructure to track diseases like Ebola has left the U.S. vulnerable to global health threats. The loss of institutional knowledge and expertise in these areas highlights the unintended consequences of DOGE’s approach, which prioritized cuts over strategic reform. Kamarck’s findings underscore the need for a more deliberate and evidence-based approach to government efficiency—one that safeguards essential services and protects public welfare.