But beneath the rhetoric of cost-cutting and regulatory streamlining lies a troubling scenario.
DOGE Serviceon the first day of President Donald Trumps second term.
TheMusk teamspurported goals are to maximize efficiency and toeliminate waste and redundancy.
Elon Musk, right, has moved to take the reins of the U.S. government.© Brandon Bell/Getty Images
That might sound like a bold move toward Silicon Valley-style innovation in governance.
However, the deeper motivations driving Musks involvement are unlikely to be purely altruistic.
One historical parallel in particular is striking.
A security officer blocks U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, right, from entering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on Feb. 6, 2025, in an effort to meet with DOGE staff.
In 1677, the company gained theright to mint currencyon behalf of the British crown.
AsIexplain in my upcoming book Who Elected Big Tech?
the U.S. is witnessing a similar pattern of a private company taking over government operations.
Candidate Donald Trump speaks at a key cryptocurrency industry conference in July 2024.
In the 21st century, data access and digital financial systems have replaced physical trading posts and private armies.
Communications are the key to power now, rather than brute strength.
The data pipeline
Viewing Musks moves as a power grab becomes clearer when examininghis corporate empire.
He controls multiple companies that have federal contracts and are subject to government regulations.
Through DOGE, all these oversight mechanisms could be weakened or eliminated under the guise of efficiency.
But the most catastrophic aspect of Musks leadership at DOGE is its unprecedented access to government data.
Reportedly, they have also seized the ability toalter the systems software,data, transactions and records.
A federal court hasordered that not to happen at least for now.
Thats an enormous and alarming amount of information and power for any one person to have.
Cryptocurrency coup?
Like Trump himself and many of his closest advisers, Musk is alsodeeply involved in cryptocurrency.
The parallel emergence ofTrumps own cryptocurrencyandDOGEs apparent alignment with the cryptocurrency known as Dogecoinsuggests more than coincidence.
But together, they create the scaffolding for transferring even more financial power tothe already wealthy.
This isnt speculation its the logical extension of DOGEs authority combined with Musks demonstrated behavior.
Critics are calling Musks actions at DOGE a massivecorporate coup.
Others are simply calling it acoup.
Who can effectively investigate a group designed to dismantle oversight itself?
Destroy the republic, build a startup nation?
The idea is that a virtual nation may form online before establishing any physical presence.
All of this obviously presentsa thicket of conflict-of-interest problemsthat are wholly unprecedented in scope and scale.
I believe were undermining American national security, as well asthe power of We, the People.
The most dangerous inefficiency of all may be Americans delayed response to this crisis.
Allison Stanger, Distinguished Endowed Professor,Middlebury
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
