Elon Musk’s DOGE team is headed into the Pentagon soon. Their work could bolster defense contracts for Musk’s companies that are worth billions of dollars.
DOGE has been rushing into federal agencies, with President Trump’s blessing, in what ethics experts, dozens of Democratic members of Congress, and some government officials are saying is an illegal push for control of government under the mantle of slashing federal spending. Even the Republican Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, says that DOGE is being driven by conservative ideology rather than sound cost-cutting practices.
Musk’s team of neophytes did not start by examining the largest sources of federal spending, like the Department of Defense (DOD) and its $800 billion-plus budget this year, or draw on existing reports of wasteful spending. Initially, DOGE pressed for access to smaller agencies opposed by many conservatives like the Department of Labor, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
On Friday, Trump said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba that DOGE would soon be turning its attention to the Pentagon, the department that has received more than half the federal discretionary budget in recent years. Trump has claimed he intends to increase defense spending, so DOGE’s cost-cutting activities, which new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says will be done “in coordination” with the DOD, would ostensibly look to eliminate waste.
While he serves as head of DOGE, Musk’s company SpaceX, which includes Starlink and business unit Starshield, is a growing Pentagon contractor, sparking objections to his conflict of interest.
Musk is classified as a “special government employee,” or SGE for short. A 2006 Justice Department rule holds that SGEs are not required to file a public financial disclosure, and may file a confidential report if they are shaping agency policy.
