DOGE Is Busier Than Ever—and Trump Says Elon Musk Is ‘Really Not Leaving’

Elon Musk will not be fully exiting the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—and its activities are only intensifying. On Friday, President Donald Trump threw cold water on the idea that Musk would fully disappear from DOGE and the White House forever. “Elon’s really not leaving,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Musk in the Oval Office. “He’s gonna be back and forth. It’s his baby, he’s going to be doing a lot of things.”

“I expect to continue to provide advice,” Musk, wearing a black hat with DOGE written on it and a black shirt reading “DOGEFATHER,” said during Friday’s press conference, while noting that his legal limit for service as a special government employee was coming to an end. “I expect to remain a friend and an advisor.”

Federal workers from at least six agencies tell WIRED that DOGE-style work is escalating in their departments.

Both new and familiar DOGE faces have also been recently detailed to new agencies, according to sources. Members of Musk’s early DOGE team, including Luke Farritor, Gavin Kliger, Edward Coristine, and Sam Corcos, have met with a number of departments and agencies—including the Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and the FBI—in recent days, seemingly continuing business as usual, WIRED has learned.

The team also appears to be actively recruiting, according to documents viewed by WIRED.

Over the last week, federal workers have also been asked to urgently review and potentially cancel contracts across the government. Trump appeared to confirm that contracts were under review at Friday’s press conference: “Many contracts, Elon, right now are being looked at,” he said.

Some agencies have also received visits from DOGE at their headquarters, WIRED has learned.

“This doesn’t sound like a group that is going away, it sounds like one that’s digging in like a parasite,” an IT specialist at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) tells WIRED.

Since DOGE first began its work in Washington in late January, its representatives have been eager to cut what they see as superfluous spending in government. In recent weeks, the pressure to slash and cancel contracts, specifically focused on workforce management and IT, has drastically increased, multiple sources at a variety of agencies tell WIRED.

“Biggest thing is we are being asked to cut as many contracts for software and labor as possible,” one tech worker at the Department of the Interior (DOI) tells WIRED, saying that the stated goal, as they understand it, has been “to save money and efficiency in consolidated IT.”

“We are cutting developers, telecom, server admins, call center staff etc.,” the DOI source says. “Some things were bloated and could use the cut. Others are going to suffer, and our service to the public is going to be degraded.”

Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and all the agencies under its umbrella, were told that contracts would have to go through a new approval process called the Departmental Efficiency Review (DER). Any requisitioning or contract approval is paused until after workers submit a form to start the DER and the deputy secretary’s office reviews the funding, according to an email about the process obtained by WIRED. The email also states that the review will flag any contracts that appear to be expensive and excessive.