“WE really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people – democracy”. – Elon Musk speaking at the World Governments Summit, Dubai, Feb 13.
Since the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk and his team have moved with unprecedented speed to eliminate federal agencies of the current administration as part of President Donald Trump’s electoral promise to overhaul the US government.
He has also gone on the offensive to describe in greater detail the mission he is undertaking and its expected impact.
“We do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leaving part of them behind. Just leave part of them behind. It’s easy. It’s kind of like leaving
a weed.
“If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed, it doesn’t stop weeds from ever going back, but it makes it harder.
“So we have to really delete entire agencies, many of them.”
Modus operandi
The modus operandi of DOGE to “remove the roots of the weed” and downsize the civil service has been nothing short of extraordinary. It may perhaps be better described as a quiet revolution or a coup.
Eschewing the usual long drawn-out consultative and deliberative process that has accompanied previous efforts aimed at cutting back on the civil service – these often have resulted in legislative deadlocks and little or minimal impact – DOGE has taken off by sending its team members to scrutinise personnel and payment information in the governmental systems, and to use
the data to dismantle parts of the bureaucracy as well as cut back on wasteful expenditure and eliminate excessive regulations.
The results to date:
DOGE claims to have saved taxpayers $US37.69 billion (RM167 billion) since beginning its work.
75,000 federal workers have accepted buyouts as part of a voluntary separation initiative. This reduction accounts for nearly 3% of the federal civilian workforce.
9,500 workers have been terminated across various agencies with an unknown number of probationary appointments that are in their first year of service.
According to Musk, if DOGE succeeds, it can trim up to US$2 trillion from the current US federal budget of US$6.4 trillion. This will enable the new administration to address a key part of the nation’s fiscal woes.
Whether DOGE will be able to make more progress is for now unclear as
the opposition from the civil service, other beneficiary groups and political opponents of Musk and Trump take their case to the American public.
Opposition
Critics have focused on a variety of reasons to rationalise opposition to the downsizing of the civil service, which the majority of the US electorate, for now, is in favour of.
They include:
The negative consequences of cutbacks to the government’s responsibilities in the provision of essential services, support for social justice programmes, environmental protection and other concerns.
Opposition to the conflict of interest in Musk’s leadership of DOGE and his extensive business empire dealings.
Concern that a downsized bureaucracy will result in the greater concentration and centralisation of political power.
Besides affected agencies and their senior staff, a semblance of an opposition coalition consisting of Democrat politicians, union leaders and progressive media and NGOs has appeared to take on Trump and DOGE in the law courts and also in the media and public space on the extent of constitutional and statutory authority of the agency.
Whilst this will be able to delay downsizing some programmes, the Supreme Court is expected to have the final say on the extent of power that the president can wield in downsizing, restructuring or eliminating agencies.
Challenging established European order
How this ongoing and, in some ways, unprecedented and possibly game-changing tussle with its political, legal and constitutional ramifications will develop is also being closely watched outside the US.
This is particularly the case in Europe where Musk’s engagement in DOGE, combined with his influence through social media platform X (formerly Twitter), has sparked concerns about foreign interference, regulatory challenges and the erosion of what has been touted as “democratic norms”.
European political parties and leaders paying close attention to Musk and the impact of DOGE on US politics and foreign policy include right-wing parties such as Germany’s Alternative for Germany and current leaders such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Musk’s influence, for now, is seen as a catalyst and a symptom of broader political shifts in Europe, favouring the rise of populism and anti-establishment sentiment.
Should DOGE succeed, it could have a snowball effect in the countries of
the European Union (EU) grappling
with socioeconomic challenges and immigration debates, and where the stultifying bloat and corruption of the
EU bureaucracy has been identified as choking growth and burdening the citizenry in worse ways than what the US has experienced.
Elsewhere in the world, countries with oversized bureaucracies that have been a drag on development and whose costs are seen as outweighing their value to the economy and society will similarly be looking for lessons to learn from DOGE. This includes Malaysia where the rightsizing of the bureaucracy has long been postponed.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy.
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