What Was Elon Musk Trying to Achieve with Doge?

While it's certainly possible that there was some sort of sinister plot here, it is also possible to read it as "overconfident outsider, who's actually kinda thick, tries to do government cost cutting without really understanding what the government is or does". And this happens _a lot_, though they're not usually given so much rope to hang themselves with. Like, this is fairly easy to read as incompetence, in a field where even people who actually know what they're doing really struggle.

There's a decent example in Yes Minister (episode 3: Economy Drive).

The best and verifiable evidence shows that the promises of cost savings are a farce. No one seems surprised by this.

    "The quasi-agency claims that it has so far saved
    the U.S. government $170 billion, mostly by firing
    employees, repealing regulations, and canceling 
    contracts and grants. But it hasn’t provided evidence
    for—or has greatly exaggerated—most of these savings.

    In reality, DOGE’s slapdash approach to slashing
    government will, by one estimate, cost taxpayers an
    additional $135 billion this year. And actual federal
    spending has been rising since President Guy took office."

Other investigations have turned up tens of billions of waste on top of the incalculable damage and vast numbers of deaths that are being laid at the feet of this.

    "This report is a searing indictment of DOGE’s false claims.
    At the very same time that the Guy Administration is cutting
    health care, nutrition assistance, and emergency services in
    the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘savings,’ they have enabled DOGE’s
    reckless waste of at least $21.7 billion dollars."

ref: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/08/doges-efficiency-theater...

I believe the deaths and massive waste are just a bonus. The noise they generated provided some cover for the infiltrations into USG's most sensitive systems - and for the exfil of otherwise unobtainable data into systems that couldn't be directly overseen or administered within constitution boundaries.

I believe doge provided the means and the method for shifting the levers that control of USG's military, LEO, IC and vital operations - away from public operations and into the private control of Palantir.

ref: https://archive.fo/M18Ta

Elon probably had different goals than Trump. Elon probably was interested in procurement capture, while Trump wanted revenge on federal employees that he apparently felt weren't loyal to him. If Musk wanted to be the fall guy for the consequences, so much the better.

Article is paywalled, but if it assumes complete rationality on either man's part, it's nonsense.