Leah Feiger: That’s a really interesting question, and I’ve been thinking about it for a while. If it’s okay, I’d like to share a quote from Scott Kupor, the director of OPM and former managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, to give some context about the current administration’s stance. He shared this on X last month as part of Reuters’ reporting: “The truth is, DOGE may not have centralized leadership under USDS anymore, but the principles of DOGE remain alive and well—deregulation, eliminating fraud, waste and abuse, reshaping the federal workforce, et cetera.” They keep saying the same thing, but it seems a bit misleading, right? They claim DOGE doesn’t exist in the same way anymore without a leading figure like Elon Musk, who mentioned on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month that, “Yeah, once I left, they weren’t able to pick on anyone, but don’t worry, DOGE is still there.” It’s surprising to see people believe that DOGE has disappeared when they’re literally saying it hasn’t.
Zoë Schiffer: One thing that really stands out is how difficult it is to separate where DOGE ends and the Trump administration begins. They’ve infiltrated so many areas of government, and the DOGE principles—deregulation, cutting costs, and zero-based budgeting—have practically become standard for the administration.
Leah Feiger: That’s an excellent point. By the end of Musk’s influence, it wasn’t that the Trump administration was completely against DOGE’s principles. They just disagreed with Musk’s approach. They were uncomfortable with how he clashed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and created controversies outside the Oval Office. It was bad optics and didn’t help the Trump administration present itself as effective.
