Has Elon Musk’s DOGE bitten off more than it can chew?

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has unleashed chaos and confusion with a short email. The Trump administration sent emails on Saturday evening to US federal government employees telling them to detail their work accomplishments from the previous week by Monday night or risk losing their jobs. The emails came shortly after Musk posted on the social media site X that not responding to the email request would be viewed as a resignation. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as Musk expands his drive to slash the size of federal government.However, the emails to federal workers have also triggered what many see as appearance of a crack in the Trump administration. Multiple federal agencies have told employees not to respond immediately to a demand by Musk to list their accomplishments in the past week or be fired. “The FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” said FBI Director Kash Patel, a staunch Trump loyalist, in an email to staff seen by Reuters. Workers at the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, as well as at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Institutes of Health and the Internal Revenue Service also were told not to respond pending further guidance, according to sources and emails reviewed by Reuters. Workers at intelligence agencies likewise will be told not to respond, according to a source.

The largest federal workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees, wrote on social media on Sunday that it did not believe Musk has the authority to fire employees who do not respond and would formally request that the Office of Personnel Management rescind the message. Some federal judiciary employees, including judges, also received the Saturday email, even though the court system is not part of the executive branch, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said. The judiciary advised employees that no action should be taken in response to the message, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.

Musk is clearly facing pushback from federal workers as well as their bosses appointed by Trump. The challenge to Musk’s authority comes when Trump’s MAGA base too has misgivings about his outsized role in the administration. Even though Trump has exhorted Musk to get more aggressive in his cost-cutting enterprise and even posted a meme ridiculing negative reaction to the emails, DOGE has come under pressure from several quarters including within Trump’s own supporters and general public.

Who is the DOGE administrator if not Musk?

Rejecting a bid by a group of labor unions to halt Trump’s dramatic downsizing of the roughly 2.3 million-strong federal workforce, a federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration can continue its mass firings of federal employees for now. It was a welcome respite for DOGE facing several legal challenges across the country.

However, many think DOGE could be leashed by the law. Apparently to blunt legal challenge to Musk’s position, the White House said in a court filing last Monday that Musk’s role in the Trump administration was that of a White House employee and senior adviser to the president, and that he had no authority over DOGE and was not an employee of the program. The judge seemed skeptical when Justice Department lawyers asserted that Musk has no formal authority. “I think you stretch too far. I disagree with you there,” she said.The litigants say Musk is wielding “virtually unchecked power” in violation of the Constitution. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to tell reporters at the White House who the DOGE administrator is, though minutes before she said in an interview with Fox News Channel that Musk has been tasked with overseeing the effort on behalf of the president. Layoffs, she told reporters, are up to individual agency heads.Later, Trump said he has put Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, appearing to contradict the White House over who runs the cost-cutting program.

Musk has been accused of a host of conflicts of interest between his business interests and his efforts to cut costs for the federal government. The White House has said the billionaire will recuse himself if any conflicts of interest arise. The White House might struggle to defend Musk’s role as legal challenges mount.

Musk is facing pushback from several directions

While Musk’s cost-cutting enterprise has drawn wide support, even in Democrat base, increasingly Americans are now questioning repercussions of his chainsaw approach.

A majority of Americans worry that Musk’s drive to slash the federal government could hurt services their communities depend on and believe that billionaires have too much influence on Trump’s administration, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found last week. Some 58% of respondents to the six-day survey completed on last Tuesday said they were concerned that federal programs such as Social Security retirement payments and student aid could be delayed by Musk’s campaign, double the 29% of respondents who said they did not worry about it.

Americans, including some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, are nervous about the influence wealthy Americans are having on the White House after Trump stocked his cabinet and circle of advisers with corporate executives and billionaires. Among poll respondents, 71% agreed with a statement that the very wealthy have too much influence on the White House, and 69% said they think the wealthy are making money off their White House connections.

There are dissenting voices even within Republicans over DOGE’s style of functioning. “If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s, ‘Please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people. These are real lives,’” Sen. John Curtis of Utah said in a Sunday interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut, and you have to be cruel to do it, as well. We can do both.”

Legal experts say Trump and Musk are violating laws that give Congress authority over spending matters. Republican lawmakers have largely cheered the effort, but some faced an angry reception as they met with voters in their home districts last week. At a town hall meeting in Roswell, Georgia, Republican Representative Rich McCormick heard catcalls and boos from voters as he tried to defend Musk’s cost-cutting. “They’ve been indiscriminate and they’ve taken a chainsaw to these things,” one attendee told him. Another Republican congressman, Scott Fitzgerald, faced a similarly frustrated crowd in West Bend, Wisconsin. “Presidents are not kings,” said one attendee in a video broadcast by TMJ4, a local NBC affiliate. Fitzgerald was cut off with a chorus of jeers when he told the room that Musk has been effective in finding waste.

In Westerville, Ohio, Republican Representative Troy Balderson said Trump’s executive orders were “getting out of control,” the Columbus Dispatch reported. “Congress has to decide whether or not the Department of Education goes away,” Balderson said at a business luncheon, the newspaper reported. “Not the president, not Elon Musk.” Trump has vowed to eliminate the department. Balderson later said he supported Trump’s cost-cutting agenda.

From legal challenges posed by Democrats to Trump loyalists heading various Federal agencies defying Musk to Americans beginning to see how DOGE’s cost-cutting can have negative repercussions to Republicans facing questions from their own constituents over mass layoffs, Musk’s DOGE seems to have bitten off more than it can chew. In coming weeks, Musk might tone down his chainsaw approach to cost-cutting so as not to alienate the MAGA base and other Trump loyalists, or there is a risk of “collapse” of Republican support.

Renowned Democratic strategist James Carville has delivered a stunning prediction that the Trump administration is in the “midst of a collapse” and will crumble within four to six weeks, as per a New York Post report. Carville on Friday urged his fellow Democrats to play “possum,” clear out of the way and let Republicans implode as President Trump plows ahead with his dramatic overhaul of the federal government.

“I believe that this administration, in less than 30 days is in the midst of a massive collapse and particularly a collapse in public opinion,” Carville said. Citing polling data, he argued that Trump’s approval rating has been taking a nosedive and that within a matter of weeks, Republicans will be almost completely hobbled in Congress. As per the Post report, historically, there had been similar occurrences in past off-election years such 2017 and 2010 that served as a harbinger of the minority retaking the House of Representatives in the midterm elections.

Carville also suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will struggle to get Republicans on board for Trump’s marquee agenda package, which has already proven to be very challenging given the party’s threadbare majority in the House.
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(With inputs from agencies)