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Six months ago, “doge” was just a reference either to a wide-eyed Shiba Inu in a viral meme or to the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which that meme inspired.Today, it’s one of the most polarizing terms in U.S. politics.DOGE — short for the Department of Government Efficiency — is a temporary agency established by President Donald Trump during his second term. Operating out of the Executive Office, the agency has been tasked with identifying and eliminating what the administration calls “waste, fraud, and abuse” across the federal government.Since its creation, DOGE has taken center stage among the administration’s headline-grabbing efforts in its first 100 days. The agency’s impact has been tangible and far-reaching, coordinating the dismissal of thousands of federal employees, overseeing the dismantling of multiple regulatory offices, and freezing or terminating millions of dollars in government contracts.Behind it all, at least according to Trump, is Elon Musk.The billionaire entrepreneur’s reported influence over the agency’s operations has only fueled public debate. Supporters view him as a visionary force for accountability and transparency in government. Detractors accuse him of overreach, labeling the agency’s actions as reckless and ideologically driven.As DOGE’s footprint continues to expand, so do questions about its legality, effectiveness, and long-term consequences for the federal workforce.This two-part series is a deep dive into DOGE's actions so far and what the future holds for the temporary agency.Part one will focus on who DOGE is and what the agency has done. Part two will examine if the agency has actually saved money and what the future holds. This is part one. Who is DOGE?Shortly after the 2024 election, Trump announced that Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the DOGE efforts. However, Ramaswamy left the agency shortly before Trump took office to run for Ohio governor.Trump has repeatedly referred to Musk as the head of DOGE, though Amy Gleason, a longtime government official who served on the Coronavirus Task Force data team during Trump’s first term, is technically the agency’s acting administrator.Gleason was named to the position following lawsuits claiming Musk’s role in DOGE could violate the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.Determining who is a part of DOGE has been somewhat elusive. The New York Times recently identified more than 60 staffers working within the agency, including administrators, data scientists, software engineers, and HR coordinators. They’re embedded across the federal government, operating inside more than 30 different agencies.According to the reporting, many of these employees come from Silicon Valley backgrounds, with several having worked at Musk-affiliated companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, X, The Boring Company and Starlink.Video below: President Trump introduces new rules to reduce federal workforce, pledges to respect court decisionsDuring his March congressional address, Trump described DOGE staffers as “a group of very intelligent, mostly young people, headed up by Elon.”Critics have questioned some DOGE staffers for their youth, limited experience, and alleged past behavior. Concerns have also been raised about potential conflicts of interest, particularly Musk’s overlapping roles in the federal government and his private companies.Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, believes much of the criticism stems from Musk’s designation as a special government employee (SGE).She explained that this status allowed Musk to bypass the Senate confirmation process and maintain his business investments. Marsco argues that Musk’s “scope of power” far exceeds that of a typical SGE—a role generally intended for individuals serving in limited advisory capacities for “very short periods of time,” sometimes just a few days. She posits that many of the current ethical concerns might have been mitigated if Musk had been subject to the same vetting and standards as Cabinet-level officials. In March, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit government watchdog, filed an ethical complaint against Musk, urging an investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration’s contracts with Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX.“Whether or not Starlink is used should be a decision made in the flying public’s interest, not in the interest of Elon Musk’s bottom line,” Marsco said. “And when he's behind these agency decisions… the public can't trust that these decisions are being made in their interest. And that's a huge problem.”Musk has denied any unethical conduct, emphasizing that DOGE’s operations have been “maximally transparent.”"Well, all of our actions are fully public," Musk said during an Oval Office appearance in February. "So, if you see anything, you say like, ‘Wait a second, hey, Elon, you know what, that seems like maybe that's, you know, that there's a conflict there.’ It’s not like people are going to be shy about saying that. They'll say it immediately."Trump, seated beside him, added that if his administration thought there was a conflict, “we would not let him do that segment or look in that area." What has DOGE done?According to an analysis by the Hearst Television Data Team, approximately 49,000 federal employees across 48 agencies and subagencies have been laid off since Trump took office.Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management reports that 75,000 workers accepted buyouts in February, bringing total federal workforce exits to nearly 125,000.DOGE has been on the frontlines of these reductions. ​​A lawsuit over the dismissal of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employees described DOGE’s takeover as “very contentious,” sparking “chaos” and “confusion.”“DOGE came in with a very hard fist, so to speak,” testified Adam Martinez, CFPB's chief operating officer.Similar accounts have surfaced at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where thousands of employees were given just 15 minutes on a Monday to leave the agency’s offices after being abruptly fired."I think there's a way to go about that. I don't think anybody would have been as terrified as they are now if they had come through and said we are going to have a program review," Caitlin Harwood, a former USAID employee, told reporters immediately after being fired.DOGE has cited bureaucratic bloat and poor performance as justifications for its sweeping reductions. However, reports of laid-off workers with “outstanding” records and targeted agencies being understaffed prior to the cuts seem to contradict DOGE’s narrative.Notably, DOGE’s approach has also resulted in a handful of missteps. At least twice, groups of employees, including those managing the nation’s nuclear programs and workers overseeing the response to bird flu, had to be brought back after being mistakenly fired.Jessica Reidl, the former chief economist for Republican Sen. Rob Portman, argues that while downsizing the federal workforce can sometimes be warranted, DOGE has failed to articulate a clear rationale.Reidl, a self-described “fiscal conservative,” contrasted DOGE’s approach to the efforts of former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, which saw more than 350,000 federal workers exit the government, the largest reduction in force since the Vietnam War.Video below: Federal workers face midnight deadline to report recent accomplishmentsClinton’s reductions focused mostly on the Defense Department, Reidl explained, and his administration did it over many years, using voluntary buyouts, early retirement bonuses and free job search assistance.“The Pentagon achieved these job reductions in a pro-worker way that minimized chaos to such a degree that most people never even heard about it,” said Reidl, who now works as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank.Meanwhile, DOGE’s strategy has been “wildly different,” Reidl said. She characterized the agency’s approach as “government cuts theater,” pointing to the “random firing of star employees” and workers “losing their jobs via e-mail with no explanation.”“There is a precedent for government reducing its workforce without having to resort to painful layoffs or using such sadistic methods as Elon Musk,” Reidl said. “It seems designed to inflict maximum pain and chaos while saving as little money as possible.”She added that, ultimately, these workforce cuts will not meaningfully reduce the deficit and could actually harm the overall economy.“Even if the White House fired a quarter of the federal civilian workforce, those 600,000 lost would save just 1% of federal spending,” Reidl said. “The economy is already fragile, with layoffs accelerating in response to tariffs. So putting hundreds of thousands of government employees out of work at the same time could be one of the tipping points to move the economy into a recession.”In addition to slashing staff, DOGE has targeted funding. According to its website, DOGE has canceled 8,454 contracts, 9,699 grants and 643 leases, with a total value of roughly $160 billion.“What we’re trying to do is get the (budget) down to a much smaller figure, save money for the American taxpayer, stop money being spent on things that are — that, I think, very few taxpayers would agree make sense, you know, transgender animal surgeries,” Elon Musk, DOGE’s unofficial leader, said in a March interview with Fox News’ Larry Kudlow.Musk, Trump, and many conservatives have celebrated these cuts, pointing to them as clear examples of waste, fraud, and abuse.In his congressional address, Trump listed some supposed examples, including “$45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma,” “$22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens,” “$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho,” and “$10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique.”Trump added, “We’ve taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation and other things. We've taken back a lot of that money. We got it just in time.”Matt Weidinger, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, said that he doesn’t agree with everything Musk and DOGE do, but he supports their broad mission of rooting out wasteful government spending.“Poll after poll suggests Americans think that there is plenty of waste, fraud and abuse, and misspending in the government to be gone after,” said Weidinger, a former staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee. “Do I agree with every one of (Musk’s) tactics or methods? No…Is he focused on the right sort of general thing of making sure that the government is spending taxpayers' money properly and efficiently? Yeah, I think he's focused on that.”Beyond the bottom-line success, DOGE’s cuts have reportedly affected certain critical programs, projects, and personnel.At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), doctors and scientists warn that research into cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases is at risk due to funding reductions. Veterans have blamed DOGE for being denied vital treatments through the Department of Veterans Affairs.The effectively shuttered USAID has halted programs that once protected tens of thousands in Africa from HIV, delivered childhood vaccines to underserved nations, and provided humanitarian relief after natural disasters.At the Department of Education, which the Trump administration and DOGE have proposed eliminating, a program that helps students with disabilities transition into the workforce was axed.Despite the pushback, the president remains unshaken in his support of DOGE and Musk.“DOGE has been a very big success,” Trump said in an interview with Time Magazine last week. “We found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse… It's a scam. It's illegal, in my opinion, so much of the stuff that we found, but I think DOGE has been a big success from that standpoint.”