You have commented 375 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Government Corruption
I saw the real DOGE from the inside. Why the media got DOGE and Elon all wrong
2026-10-03
[FOX] What shocked me wasn't the people — it was the system around them: the inefficient organizations, the decades-old technology and the near-total absence of accountability. Many good people were trapped inside a machine built to resist common sense.

Did we get along with everyone? No. We were there to challenge the mindset that "this is how it's always been done" as stewards of the American taxpayer. We intentionally disrupted a culture that had grown comfortable with the status quo — and yes, that made some jobs less comfortable. That was the point. Americans work hard for those dollars and deserve a government that spends them prudently. Some conflict was inevitable. But I left Washington with far more respect for career government workers than I expected to have.

What about the caricature of reckless "DOGE bros" running wild? First, those young engineers are some of the brightest people in this country. They are great Americans who sacrificed enormous private-sector opportunities to put their talents to work for their love of country. Second, the caricature erases the roughly 20 brilliant women on our team, three of them on mine at Interior. Did they want to step into the spotlight amid all the media hostility? Of course not — I feared for my own family's safety and theirs. They did it anyway and kept working relentlessly to reduce the deficit and help American families.

And our leadership? I keep hearing people ask how anyone could work for someone as volatile as Elon Musk.

I saw the opposite. I saw a man so locked in on the problem that he sometimes slept on the floor in a nearby office. In our meetings, two things struck me that I'll never forget: his ability to be completely present with a problem until it was solved, and a sense of urgency so strong that everyone in the room felt it. It was contagious, and it was relentless. He was respectful, constructive and sometimes even funny.

His motivation, as best I could tell, was simple: a genuine belief that an insolvent America can't solve its own problems, let alone the world's. I happen to agree.
Related:
DOGE: 2026-09-27 Clarice: If it Ain't One Law, it's Another
DOGE: 2026-09-26 Supreme Court restores Trump's mass voter verification system
DOGE: 2026-09-22 Hegseth to lead new Pentagon advisory board on Homeland Defense
Posted by:Skidmark

#4  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Airandee   2026-10-03 18:06  

#3  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Super Hose   2026-10-03 10:43  

#2  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Besoeker   2026-10-03 07:39  

#1  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Skidmark   2026-10-03 07:17  

00:00