Martian in the White House: Elon Musk's first 100 days battling the U.S. government from within

The plan was for billionaire Elon Musk to head the revamped agency — after all, it was he who convinced Trump to create DOGE as a tool for implementing massive budget cuts. But the White House repeatedly dodged questions about who was actually running the department. Only after a lawsuit forced the release of internal documents did it become clear that the agency was, at least formally, headed not by Musk but by Amy Gleason, who had worked in the USDS during Trump’s first term. She returned during the transition from Biden to Trump in order to lay the groundwork for Musk’s arrival and later became the acting director of DOGE.

Musk was given an office in the West Wing, but he found it too cramped and thus relocated to the former office of the defense secretary, where he set up a gaming computer. He spent most of his time at the General Services Administration building, where the bulk of DOGE staff were based. Several rooms there were converted into living quarters, complete with beds, dressers, and a washing machine. A children’s play area was even set up for Musk’s kids, whom he often brought to work. Like many of his employees, the billionaire regularly slept at the office — a practice he’d already introduced at Tesla.

The first casualty of DOGE was USAID, which accounts for a mere 1% of federal spending. With Musk’s help, the agency was effectively dismantled, and what remained of it was folded into the State Department. Out of more than 10,000 USAID employees, fewer than 300 kept their jobs — the rest were fired or placed on administrative leave. Of the agency’s 6,200 contracts, 5,800 were canceled, cutting $54 billion in funding.