The Department of Government Efficiency is still in business streamlining government work despite Elon Musk’s departure in late April, according to Rep. Pete Sessions.
Sessions (R-Texas), co-chair of the Congressional DOGE Caucus, said he last spoke to former DOGE leader Elon Musk in March or April, prior to the Tesla CEO’s falling out with President Donald Trump — a relationship Sessions called “a stormy romance.”
Dodging a direct question about who is leading the DOGE effort now, Sessions said only that “DOGE is an active component in the government.”
“They meet on a regular basis. They are made up of professionals who have a mission. They are people who sincerely want to change the system,” Sessions said, during a session on DOGE at POLITICO’s AI and Tech Summit on Tuesday.
A government tech contractor offered a mixed review of that mission: “DOGE made a bunch of mistakes early. They broke a lot of things,” said Michael Beckley, chief technology officer and co-founder of the software company Appian. “But they’ve moved on to creation now and creating a new fabric in which the government can efficiently choose how it buys things using AI.”
Sessions suggested that legacy systems, poor quality data and political attacks have also slowed down DOGE’s work.
DOGE staffers have previously come under fire for their handling of sensitive social security data, but Sessions indicated those problems were simply part of grappling with rigid government systems and protocols.
DOGE’s mission remains much the same, according to Sessions — eliminating inefficient, wasteful or fraudulent government spending. “We have to get to the bottom line of who is receiving those benefits,” Sessions said.
Sessions said federal agencies’ chief information officers are the best people to lead a technology-focused government reform effort, rather than appointing a czar for the project.
