The Department of Government Ineptitude

Elon Musk's DOGE team is violating every basic principle of good management.

By Max Stier

Amid the current busy tax season, representatives of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) arrived at the IRS and in a matter of days began the process of firing 6,700 employees at locations throughout the country. What could possibly go wrong?

As President Donald Trump’s front man, Musk’s fire first and ask questions later approach to purging the federal workforce has created havoc, jeopardized critical government functions, upended the lives of federal employees, likely incurred large financial liabilities for violating the law, and has been riddled with outright blunders. In short, DOGE is anything but a department of efficiency.

At the Department of Agriculture, for example, employees working to respond to the H5NI avian flu outbreak were mistakenly fired, forcing the department to rescind the termination letters. The same thing happened at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the organization responsible for overseeing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, where more than 300 employees were abruptly fired and then called back to work.

There’s much more. Thousands of federal employees accepted the government’s “deferred resignation” offer to resign immediately but still be paid through September. Days later, many of these public servants were sent notices that they were summarily fired. In another instance, buyouts were offered and then rescinded to Department of Veterans Affairs employees after it suddenly dawned on the DOGE crew that this would affect care and services for our nation’s veterans.

In addition, some of the jobs abruptly eliminated by the DOGE team and then restored days later are paid for by fees from banks, medical device companies and other funding sources, and would not have saved taxpayer dollars but instead would reduce government effectiveness and hurt our economy.

And then there are the misrepresentations.

A DOGE website recently claimed it saved taxpayers $8 billion by canceling a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract that was actually valued at $8 million. Musk claimed that DOGE canceled a $21 million grant to encourage voter turnout in India when no such grant existed. The phony grant assertion caused an uproar among politicians in India who accused the United States of meddling in their electoral system.

And, of course, Trump and his team summarily fired more than 17 inspectors general, the independent internal agency watchdogs who have saved the government billions of dollars by uncovering waste, fraud and abuse.

In their madcap demolition spree, the DOGE team is violating every basic principle of good management. Here are three that rise to the top:.

Ready, aim, fire

The DOGE team came into our government with no understanding of how it works and no thoughtful plan to improve what exists. Instead, it is indiscriminately firing as many people as possible without identifying poor performers, occupations that might be overrepresented or areas where logical cost savings might be achieved.

A sizable number of those fired have been recent hires still on probationary status, with many representing a much-needed infusion of young talent adept in areas of great demand, including AI, cybersecurity and technology. And though some staff reductions might be in order, the federal workforce, spread across the country, is about the same size as it was in 1969 -- but, as a proportion of the overall population, substantially smaller.

Engage, don’t enrage, your workforce

As any seasoned manager knows, it’s best to engage and motivate rather than to alienate your workforce. The DOGE team has gone the extra mile to denigrate public servants and public service itself, which is a recipe for chasing away good people and will lead to a poorer customer experience for the public.

DOGE’s latest offensive missive to all federal employees -- instructing them to send a summary to the Office of Personnel Management of what they have done in the last week -- has created massive confusion and belongs on top of DOGE’s list of government waste. Trump’s agency leadership will soon find that they cannot get much done, and the diminished organizational performance will be with us for years to come.

Context matters

The federal government isn’t Twitter, but the DOGE team appears to be a one-trick pony. The Silicon Valley “break it to fix it” approach is a terrible fit in the public sector where a lot of vulnerable people are getting hurt. The DOGE team has shown no curiosity to understand the organizations it allegedly wants to improve and no interest in what anyone has tried before. Context matters, but everything is a nail to the DOGE hammer.

A prime example is that the DOGE wrecking crew seems unaware and unconcerned that in our system of government, Congress decides the purpose and funding of federal agencies, not the president or his appointees. The rule of law appears to be simply another code that can be overwritten by DOGE programmers.

There is no question that reform of our government is necessary, and money can be saved, but Trump and Musk’s DOGE team is taking us in the wrong direction, and its haphazard, arbitrary and destructive decisions will have profound consequences.

This not a time for silence or looking away. The damage is substantial and requires Congress, business, civil society and the public to make their voices heard.

Max Stier is president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, an organization focused on building a better government and a stronger democracy.

---