According to multiple US media reports, the DOGE Department directly terminated or pushed into early retirement more than 250,000 federal employees. Many others accepted voluntary buyouts amid mounting uncertainty over the agency’s sweeping restructuring initiatives. Several senior DOGE officials have now been reassigned across federal departments following the closure.
The DOGE Department was conceived as part of President Donald Trump’s broader “Project 2025” plan to compress the size of the federal government. Its mandate was to make the system “smaller, faster, and cheaper.” Musk and Republican leader Vivek Ramaswamy were initially named co-heads, although Ramaswamy exited even before the department became operational. Politico has reported that Musk pushed for his removal.
Musk had claimed DOGE would deliver $2 trillion in federal savings. However, the agency’s website listed projected savings of only $214 billion, and subsequent investigations by Politico suggested even those figures were significantly inflated. Musk left the department himself in May 2025, four months after its launch.
The agency drew intense scrutiny after it ordered the removal of 350 employees from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees America’s nuclear arsenal. The Department of Energy later reinstated 322 of them following security concerns and public backlash. The episode became the most controversial moment of DOGE’s brief tenure and triggered several legal challenges from ethics and public-interest groups.
ABC News reported additional concerns over DOGE’s inexperienced staff, some of whom accessed sensitive data systems and attempted to dismantle several federal programs, including DEI initiatives. The abrupt shutdown now leaves questions over the long-term consequences of the department’s aggressive restructuring push.
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