On the morning of February 3rd, Washington time, the headquarters building of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was closed, and the once bustling office area fell silent. Just the night before, officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, officially took over the international aid agency with a history of more than 60 years and announced plans to completely shut it down. USAID employees received an email, and except for key personnel, all other personnel switched to remote work. At the same time, the USAID official website was taken offline, the official social media accounts were deleted, and the agencys operations came to a standstill.
Musk said on social media that he had discussed the matter with President Trump and received full authorization to shut down USAID. He claimed that the agency is a far-left criminal organization that must be completely disbanded.
Musk and Trump have teamed up to form the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is promoting radical reforms in the name of streamlining government. Its core goals are to cut government spending, digitally transform the bureaucracy, and replace human decision-making with algorithms. The vigorous shutdown of USAID has also revealed the true colors of the previously mysterious DOGE team members, and this may just be the beginning. The power map of the U.S. federal government is being rapidly reshaped.
Team composition: Six young technologists with an average age of 22
The DOGE team consists of six technical elites aged 19-25, none of whom have any government experience, but are closely connected with Musks companies (such as SpaceX, Neuralink) or Silicon Valley capital (such as Peter Thiel).
Image source network
Gavin Krieger (25 years old): Krieger graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked as a senior software engineer at Databricks, an American AI data analysis company, and is an expert in artificial intelligence and big data analysis. Kriegers task is to write executive orders and ensure that they can take effect quickly within the government. The email sent to all USAID employees not to return to headquarters on Monday came from him. He also directly drafted the funding review order for the US Treasury Department, participated in the OPMs large-scale layoff plan, and was responsible for formulating the re-employment standards for civil servants, so that future government employees must be approved by DOGE before they can join the company.
Luke Faritto (23): Faritto dropped out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and went to work for Nat Friedman, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind GitHub. He interned at SpaceX, writing software for pumps, valves, and other components that help fuel rockets. Faritto is currently listed as an executive engineer in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), personally overseeing USAIDs digital blockade operation, which has now targeted the systems of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is responsible for the contract.
Edward Christian (19): Christian is the youngest, just graduated from high school, and is studying mechanical engineering and physics at Northeastern University in Boston. He worked at Musks brain-computer interface company Neuralink for three months last summer, and his specific duties are not yet clear. Christian once used the non-government Google Gmail to join calls with employees of the General Services Administration, asking them to check the code they wrote and prove the rationality of their work, which caused dissatisfaction among federal employees.
Akash Boba (21 years old): Boba is from the University of California, Berkeley. He was an investment engineering intern at Bridgewater Associates. He also interned at Meta and Palantir, an American software service provider founded by MAGA funder Peter Thiel. He specializes in artificial intelligence, data analysis and financial modeling. He is responsible for designing algorithms to monitor the flow of government funds. The real-time monitoring system for fiscal expenditures he led allows the real-time freezing of federal inefficient expenditures without congressional review.
Ethan Shortland (22 years old): Shortland is a senior student majoring in computer science at Harvard University. He is the only one in the team with experience in artificial intelligence entrepreneurship. The artificial intelligence company he founded, Energize AI, received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI and won the runner-up in the hackathon held by Musks artificial intelligence company xAI. Shortland is in charge of DOGEs AI government program, which aims to replace the governments traditional human decision-making mechanism with algorithms and automate most administrative approvals, budget assessments, and even congressional reports.
Gautier Cole Killian (24 years old): Cracked the Treasury Departments security system and gained access to the payment network. Killian graduated from McGill University and has strong capabilities in financial data processing. He worked as an engineer at Jump Trading, a company specializing in high-frequency financial trading and algorithms. Killians main task is to help the DOGE team crack the Treasury Departments security line, allowing them to access the government payment network and bypass security checks to directly read millions of transaction records. Killian is also one of the few young people who have obtained high-level access to the White House, and Musk has great trust in him.
With the joint efforts of these six people, DOGE completed the administrative reorganization that the US government had not achieved in decades in just two weeks. Their actions were extremely efficient, and each person was responsible for multiple tasks and worked day and night. Some employees of the team did not leave their posts for 7 x 24 hours, sleeping in the office when they were tired and sleepy, and fully audited the bottomless US federal agencies. Musk spoke highly of them and praised them on social media as the future of the new government.
The White House launches a Silicon Valley-style blitzkrieg
Since Trump took office on January 20, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk has begun to cut down swiftly. According to the official DOGE, the agencies and projects that have been closed and the funds saved are as follows:
On January 20, the Chief Diversity Officers Executive Committee (CDOEC) was closed;
On January 25, approximately $420 million of existing/upcoming contracts were canceled;
On January 27, the departments of Labor, Transportation, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and Treasury canceled 16 DEIA contracts, saving $145 million;
On January 28, the federal General Services Administration (GSA) terminated three leases for nearly empty office space and closed 17 DEIA sites, saving $1.6 million;
On January 29, it canceled $45 million in DEI scholarships for Burma;
(As of January 29, 2025, 26 departments including the Ministry of Education and the General Services Administration have terminated 85 DEIA-related contracts with a total value of approximately US$1 billion;)
On February 3, the number of lease terminations in underutilized buildings increased to 22, with savings increasing from $1.6 million to $44.6 million;
On February 3, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was shut down;
On February 4, six agencies terminated 36 contracts, saving a total of about $165 million, including the Department of Homeland Securitys Humanities Investigation and Climate Support Services contract;
On February 5, 12 consulting contracts (at GSA and the Department of Education) were terminated, saving a total of approximately $30 million;
On February 6, the Social Security Administration terminated its contract for the Gender X Initiative, saving more than $1 million; NASA canceled its Politico subscription, saving $500,000; 78 contracts in the DEI, distressed assets, media and consulting categories were terminated, with a total savings of approximately $110 million;
On February 8, it was announced that in the past 48 hours, the Department of Health and Human Services canceled 62 contracts worth $182 million; the Department of Education terminated three DEI training grants totaling $15 million.
Under Trumps instructions, Musks team is taking over the US federal agencies in an extraordinary way. The most controversial USAID shutdown has also been a foreshadowing. In the past two weeks, more than 70% of USAIDs departments have been eliminated, more than a thousand regular employees and contract personnel have been forcibly laid off or suspended indefinitely, its digital portal has been completely paralyzed, social media has stopped updating, and even the nameplate logo of the agencys headquarters has been quietly removed.
Image source: USAID official website, stating that all USAID directly employed personnel will be on administrative leave at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, February 7.
This systemic takeover is spreading at an alarming rate. Musks DOGE team not only quickly took control of the USAID operation center, but also simultaneously infiltrated core departments such as the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the General Services Administration (GSA). The chief security officers, chief financial officers, and executive executives of several key departments have been dismissed, and a large number of senior civil servants have been stripped of their powers. In sharp contrast, hundreds of new technology talents who lack government work experience but have mysterious connections with Musk are entering government positions through special channels. They can directly access confidential databases without undergoing regular security checks.
What is particularly controversial is DOGEs penetration of the fiscal payment center. This financial lifeline, which controls social security payments, Medicaid, civil servant salaries and corporate subsidies across the United States, has always been operated by professional financial officials. However, the DOGE team has recently broken through traditional constraints, not only obtaining real-time monitoring rights for the fiscal payment system, but also starting to establish a non-essential expenditure screening mechanism, preparing to implement intelligent cuts to federal welfare programs.
Musk claimed on social media that there are a lot of illegal payments in the federal governments daily expenditures, including foreign aid, social welfare, academic research funds, etc., and DOGEs goal is to cut $4 billion in spending every day. On February 6, DOGE posted that 78 contracts in the DEI, non-performing assets, media and consulting categories were terminated, including a groundwater exploration and evaluation contract in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The total savings are about $110 million.
Of course, there are also some ridiculous changes, especially in terms of gender issues that Chinese people generally cannot understand. On February 6, DOGE’s official Twitter account said, “The Social Security Administration has terminated the contract for the Gender X Initiative Marker and removed all content related to gender ideology from public-facing applications. This saved more than $1 million and complies with the President’s executive order” (pictured below).
In the picture, the change involves the URL change of the Social Security online application page, which is adjusted to /sex instead of /gender. Although the wording of the application form itself has not changed, it is still What is your gender? and provides male and female options, but the official wording has changed from gender to biological sex, and does not recognize psychological identity gender. This is consistent with the executive order signed by Trump on January 20, 2025, entitled Defending Women from Gender Ideological Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. The order defines gender as a binary of male and female, requires federal agencies to use gender instead of gender identity, stop funding gender confirmation care, and prohibit transgender people from using corresponding facilities in federally funded single-sex facilities based on their gender identity.
Image source: NEW YORK POST, Trump made a statement that he only supports two genders, men and women
As DOGE gradually penetrated into the core of government agencies, the balance of power became increasingly tilted. In internal communications, civil servants were told that they must accept government efficiency reforms or face the risk of being fired or transferred to marginal positions. Some employees of the Ministry of Finance even received warning emails suggesting that their positions might be eliminated. At the same time, Musk mocked government workers on social media, calling them lazy and encouraging them to resign voluntarily, suggesting that only those who were willing to adapt to the new system would remain in office.
Musks plan goes far beyond cutting spending and purging officials. His goal is to establish a completely new model of government - a governance system led by technology entrepreneurs and assisted by algorithms and artificial intelligence in administrative decision-making. He has assigned a team of former Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX employees to begin developing government management artificial intelligence to automatically review budgets, approve projects, and analyze the effectiveness of policy implementation in the future.
In the next move, DOGE is considering disbanding the U.S. Department of Education through administrative means. Relevant officials have discussed an executive order that would revoke all functions of the U.S. Department of Education that are not explicitly included in the regulations, or transfer certain functions to other departments. It is worth mentioning that Trump mentioned in an interview with Musk in August last year that if he was re-elected as the President of the United States, he would close the U.S. Department of Education.
A power crisis tearing apart American politics?
As DOGE’s influence swept through the political arena like a whirlwind, the voices of opponents also grew louder.
The sudden closure of USAID has not only caused a stir in the United States, but also caused widespread concern in the international community. The agency manages a huge amount of funds of about 40 billion US dollars each year, involving more than 100 countries around the world, covering humanitarian aid, development support, health projects and other fields. Its sudden closure has caused many countries and aid organizations to lose aid, and some emergency aid projects are even at risk of interruption.
At the same time, as soon as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant took office, he gave Musk and his DOGE team access to payment system data. This move has sparked widespread controversy, with critics pointing out that this could lead to the exposure of sensitive information of tens of millions of citizens and businesses, endangering the financial security of Americans and even threatening the stability of national infrastructure and personal privacy.
DOGE took control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the General Services Administration (GSA) without proper review or authorization, and the legitimacy and competence of its series of personnel appointments quickly aroused doubts and criticisms from the outside world. Generally speaking, the formulation of federal policies requires layers of approval within government agencies, and ultimately the decision is made by cabinet members and the president. However, Musk and his core team bypassed this process and formed an informal decision-making group dominated by technology elites, entrepreneurs, and young engineers.
In response, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer announced that he would work with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to propose legislation to resist DOGEs illegal interference. At the same time, multiple lawsuits against Musk have been filed in federal courts, alleging that DOGE officials accessed confidential information without approval, violated government procurement regulations, and abused executive orders to cut federal spending.
Image source: TVBS NEWS, Democrats oppose Musks reforms
On February 6, local time, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk suffered a setback - federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the Treasury Department from providing data in its payment system to outsiders. Therefore, Musk himself will not be able to review the data retrieved from the payment system.
To make matters worse, hours after the judges ruling, a 25-year-old DOGE programmer, Marko Elez, suddenly resigned after being found to have posted racist comments on his dormant social media account.
Musks strong actions are inseparable from the strong support and trust of President Trump. In the White House, Musk not only has an independent office, but also frequently attends meetings of senior officials. Trump has publicly stated many times that he is confident in Musks decisions. In terms of how the government operates, Musk is trying to abandon the traditional bureaucratic system and adopt an efficient model similar to that of Silicon Valley companies. Many senior government officials have expressed concerns that such reforms may lead to excessive concentration of power in the hands of private capital and undermine the transparency and accountability mechanism of the government. But under Trumps protection, despite some obstacles, Musks pace of reform is still unstoppable.
Drastic reforms are always a war without gunpowder. They may establish a subversive global government management model, or they may become a victim of power struggles. If the Democratic Partys opposition gradually grows, or a strong opposition emerges in the judicial system, DOGEs reform may slow down for some reason. However, judging from the current efficiency, Musks actions are much faster than the traditional administrative system that is too big to be removed. A corporate-type government dominated by technology and efficiency is being shaped. Is this adventure of Musk and six young people a genius innovation or a dangerous game? The answer can only be verified by time.
