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Inside Elon Musk’s Plan for DOGE to Slash Government Costs

Published

1 year ago

January 12, 2025

Inside Elon Musk’s Plan for DOGE to Slash Government Costs

An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting.

As President-elect Donald J. Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency girds for battle against “wasteful” spending, it is preparing to dispatch individuals with ties to its co-leaders, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to agencies across the federal government.

After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies. The goal is for most major agencies to eventually have two DOGE representatives as they seek to cut costs like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform.

This story is based on interviews with roughly a dozen people who have insight into DOGE’s operations. They spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

On the eve of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the structure of DOGE is still amorphous and closely held. People involved in the operation say that secrecy and avoiding leaks is paramount, and much of its communication is conducted on Signal, the encrypted messaging app.

Mr. Trump has said the effort would drive “drastic change,” and that the entity would provide outside advice on how to cut wasteful spending. DOGE itself will have no power to cut spending — that authority rests with Congress. Instead, it is expected to provide recommendations for programs and other areas to cut.

But parts of the operation are becoming clear: Many of the executives involved are expecting to do six-month voluntary stints inside the federal government before returning to their high-paying jobs. Mr. Musk has said they will not be paid — a nonstarter for some originally interested tech executives — and have been asked by him to work 80-hour weeks. Some, including possibly Mr. Musk, will be so-called special government employees, a specific category of temporary workers who can only work for the federal government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period.

The representatives will largely be stationed inside federal agencies. After some consideration by top officials, DOGE itself is now unlikely to incorporate as an organized outside entity or nonprofit. Instead, it is likely to exist as more of a brand for an interlinked group of aspirational leaders who are on joint group chats and share a loyalty to Mr. Musk or Mr. Ramaswamy.

“The cynics among us will say, ‘Oh, it’s naïve billionaires stepping into the fray.’ But the other side will say this is a service to the nation that we saw more typically around the founding of the nation,” said Trevor Traina, an entrepreneur who worked in the first Trump administration with associates who have considered joining DOGE.

“The friends I know have huge lives,” Mr. Traina said, “and they’re agreeing to work for free for six months, and leave their families and roll up their sleeves in an attempt to really turn things around. You can view it either way.”

DOGE leaders have told others that the minority of people not detailed to agencies would be housed within the Executive Office of the President at the U.S. Digital Service, which was created in 2014 by former President Barack Obama to “change our government’s approach to technology.”

DOGE is also expected to have an office in the Office of Management and Budget, and officials have also considered forming a think tank outside the government in the future.

Mr. Musk’s friends have been intimately involved in choosing people who are set to be deployed to various agencies. Those who have conducted interviews for DOGE include the Silicon Valley investors Marc Andreessen, Shaun Maguire, Baris Akis and others who have a personal connection to Mr. Musk. Some who have received the Thiel Fellowship, a prestigious grant funded by Mr. Thiel given to those who promise to skip or drop out of college to become entrepreneurs, are involved with programming and operations for DOGE. Brokering an introduction to Mr. Musk or Mr. Ramaswamy, or their inner circles, has been a key way for leaders to be picked for deployment.

That is how the co-founder of Loom, Vinay Hiremath, said he became involved in DOGE in a rare public statement from someone who worked with the entity. In a post this month on his personal blog, Mr. Hiremath described the work that DOGE employees have been doing before he decided against moving to Washington to join the entity.

“After 8 calls with people who all talked fast and sounded very smart, I was added to a number of Signal groups and immediately put to work,” he wrote. “The next 4 weeks of my life consisted of 100s of calls recruiting the smartest people I’ve ever talked to, working on various projects I’m definitely not able to talk about, and learning how completely dysfunctional the government was. It was a blast.”

These recruits are assigned to specific agencies where they are thought to have expertise. Some other DOGE enrollees have come to the attention of Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy through X. In recent weeks, DOGE’s account on X has posted requests to recruit a “very small number” of full-time salaried positions for engineers and back-office functions like human resources.

The DOGE team, including those paid engineers, is largely working out of a glass building in SpaceX’s downtown office located a few blocks from the White House. Some people close to Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Musk hope that these DOGE engineers can use artificial intelligence to find cost-cutting opportunities.

The broader effort is being run by two people with starkly different backgrounds: One is Brad Smith, a health care entrepreneur and former top health official in Mr. Trump’s first White House who is close with Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law. Mr. Smith has effectively been running DOGE during the transition period, with a particular focus on recruiting, especially for the workers who will be embedded at the agencies.

Mr. Smith has been working closely with Steve Davis, a collaborator of Mr. Musk’s for two decades who is widely seen as working as Mr. Musk’s proxy on all things. Mr. Davis has joined Mr. Musk as he calls experts with questions about the federal budget, for instance.

Other people involved include Matt Luby, Mr. Ramaswamy’s chief of staff and childhood friend; Joanna Wischer, a Trump campaign official; and Rachel Riley, a McKinsey partner who works closely with Mr. Smith.

Mr. Musk’s personal counsel — Chris Gober — and Mr. Ramaswamy’s personal lawyer — Steve Roberts — have been exploring various legal issues regarding the structure of DOGE. James Burnham, a former Justice Department official, is also helping DOGE with legal matters. Bill McGinley, Mr. Trump’s initial pick for White House counsel who was instead named as legal counsel for DOGE, has played a more minimal role.

“DOGE will be a cornerstone of the new administration, helping President Trump deliver his vision of a new golden era,” said James Fishback, the founder of Azoria, an investment firm, and confidant of Mr. Ramaswamy who will be providing outside advice for DOGE.

Despite all this firepower, many budget experts have been deeply skeptical about the effort and its cost-cutting ambitions. Mr. Musk initially said the effort could result in “at least $2 trillion” in cuts from the $6.75 trillion federal budget. But budget experts say that goal would be difficult to achieve without slashing popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, which Mr. Trump has promised not to cut.

Both Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy have also recast what success might mean. Mr. Ramaswamy emphasized DOGE-led deregulation on X last month, saying that removing regulations could stimulate the economy and that “the success of DOGE can’t be measured through deficit reduction alone.”

And in an interview last week with Mark Penn, the chairman and chief executive of Stagwell, a marketing company, Mr. Musk downplayed the total potential savings.

“We’ll try for $2 trillion — I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” Mr. Musk said. “You kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for two trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one.”

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Business

How Waymo and Waze are pitching in to help solve L.A.’s pothole problem

Published

6 hours ago

April 14, 2026

Press Room

How Waymo and Waze are pitching in to help solve L.A.’s pothole problem

Waze and Waymo are teaming up to help combat Los Angeles’ growing pothole problem.

The companies announced a program that will use Waymo’s self-driving cars to better detect potholes in the city. The data will be available to city officials through Waze’s traffic data-sharing platform, according to a news release last week.

The number of potholes in L.A. jumped early this year after an intense rainy season soaked the city. Residents reported over 6,700 potholes in January and nearly 5,000 reports were submitted in February and again in March, according to data from the city’s 311 tip line analyzed by the nonprofit newsroom Crosstown L.A.

The partnership is the most recent effort in Waymo’s long-standing commitment to making roads safer, Arielle Fleisher, the company’s policy development and research manager, said in the release.

The Waze navigation app will also use the data to warn users as they approach a pothole, the company said.

Drivers will then be able to verify the Waymo-identified pothole in real time.

L.A. has been slow to repair pavement issues on its 23,000 miles of streets in recent years.

The city repaired 310 miles of road in fiscal year 2025, which ended in June — a nosedive from the 850 miles it paved a decade before in 2015, according to Crosstown. Only 216 miles of street lanes were paved in fiscal year 2024.

The Bureau of Street Services, the department in charge of paving the city’s streets, is in communication with Waymo regarding the pilot program, said Dan Halden, a spokesperson for the city department.

“The bureau proactively manages the city’s streets, ensuring roadways are treated not only for repair but also to strengthen the street network and prevent future potholes,” he said.

Many cities, including L.A., rely on residents to report potholes through the nonemergency 311 service. The process provides an incomplete picture of road health, according to Waymo and Waze.

The pilot program intends to fill in reporting gaps and was developed based on feedback from city officials.

“We want to build on the safety benefits of our service by partnering with organizations and city officials to help improve the infrastructure we all depend on,” Fleisher said

The pilot program is running in five cities, including San Francisco, and has already identified 500 potholes. The program is also underway in the metropolitan areas of Phoenix; Austin, Texas; and Atlanta.

The companies plan to expand into cities with colder weather, which can worsen the pothole problem.

“Working together helps our community and makes our roads better for everyone,” Andrew Stober, the strategic partner manager at Waze, said in the release.

Business

Hollywood stars line up against Paramount’s Warner Bros. acquisition

Published

18 hours ago

April 13, 2026

Press Room

Hollywood stars line up against Paramount’s Warner Bros. acquisition

A constellation of stars are lining up against Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, expressing fears the blockbuster merger would devastate the industry and shrink production jobs.

The letter was signed by nearly 1,000 artists and movie creators, including such big names as Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, Noah Wyle, Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Stewart and Jane Fonda, whose Committee for the First Amendment helped organize the campaign.

“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries — and the audiences we serve — can least afford it,” according to the letter. “The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world.”

Paramount, in a statement, pushed back against the artists’ concerns. Tech scion David Ellison and his team believes the blockbuster deal makes sense — particularly because of turmoil in the entertainment business, the company said.

“This is also a moment when the industry has been facing significant disruption—and the need for strong, creative-first and well-capitalized companies that can continue to invest in storytelling has never been greater,” Paramount said.

The Hollywood workforce has shrunk by more than 42,000 jobs between 2022 and 2024, according to a recent study. The economy has not bounced back following shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the twin labor strikes three years ago.

Thousands of film workers have been searching for work — but many of the big opportunities have moved abroad.

The strikes prompted studio executives to reset their output after previously spending big to build streaming services to compete with Netflix.

Two other consolidations led to widespread cutbacks: Walt Disney Co.’s acquisition of Fox entertainment assets in 2019, and Discovery’s takeover of AT&T’s WarnerMedia four years ago.

The resulting entity — Warner Bros. Discovery, led by David Zaslav — instituted deep cost cuts and thousands of layoffs to cut expenses because the firm was nearly drowning in deal debt — $43 billion — from the day Zaslav took the helm.

Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. would result in a significantly higher debt load, $79 billion in debt, prompting concerns from the group and others about further downsizing.

Ellison, the 43-year-old son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is leading the effort to buy Warner Bros. Discovery to prop up Paramount, which the family acquired in August.

In late February, Ellison’s Paramount Skydance prevailed in a nearly six-month bidding war after Netflix unexpectedly bowed out when the elder Ellison agreed to financially back his son’s $111-billion deal.

“We have been clear in our commitments to do just that: increasing output to a minimum of 30 high-quality feature films annually with full theatrical releases, continuing to license content, and preserving iconic brands with independent creative leadership,” Paramount said, adding that such promises should ensure that “creators have more avenues for their work, not fewer.”

Warner shareholders will be asked to approve the merger April 23.

Ellison is pushing to wrap the deal up this summer.

“We are deeply concerned by indications of support for this merger that prioritize the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good,” the letter said. “The integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry would be grievously compromised. Competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. So is thoughtful regulation and enforcement.”

The group urged California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his fellow state attorneys general to sue to block the transaction.

Bonta has told The Times that his office is reviewing the transaction to see if it violates antitrust rules. Two historic movie studios, several streaming services and dozens of cable channels would be brought under one roof.

“Media consolidation has already weakened one of America’s most vital global industries,” the group said, “one that has long shaped culture and connected people around the world.”

Bonta’s office is leading the charge against another merger, TV station giant Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2-billion takeover of Virginia-based Tegna. Eight state attorneys general, including Bonta, have sued to block that deal. A judge is expected to rule on whether to issue a preliminary injunction later this week.

Business

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addresses Molotov cocktail attack on his home and AI backlash

Published

1 day ago

April 13, 2026

Press Room

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addresses Molotov cocktail attack on his home and AI backlash

Hours after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at his San Francisco home, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman addressed the criticism surrounding artificial intelligence that appears to have been the impetus for the attack.

In a lengthy blog post, Altman shared a family photo of his husband and child, stating he hopes it might convince people not to repeat the attack despite their opinions on him.

The San Francisco Police Department arrested a 20-year-old man in connection with the Friday morning attack but did not publicly comment on the motivation. Altman and his company, the maker of ChatGPT, have been at the center of a heated debate about whether AI will change the world for better or worse.

“While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally,” Altman wrote.

The rise of AI chatbots that can generate text, images and code has raised concerns about whether there are enough guardrails around the development of the powerful technology.

From job displacement to the effects of AI on mental health and war, critics have been vocal about their fears. Families have also sued technology companies including OpenAI and Google, alleging in lawsuits that their chatbots contributed to the death of their loved ones. OpenAI has faced backlash after striking a deal with the Department of Defense shortly after its rival Anthropic raised AI safety concerns and lost its contract.

Politicians in California and other states have been passing new laws that target AI safety. And groups that aim to stop the development of AI have regularly protested outside OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters.

In the blog post, Altman acknowledged the fear and anxiety surrounding AI was “justified” because “we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever.” But he also said that people will do “incredible things” with AI and that “technological progress can make the future unbelievably good.”

Altman has become a controversial figure as companies race to advance AI. In 2023, OpenAI’s board of directors fired Altman, stating that he wasn’t “consistently candid” in his communications with the board and that board members had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company. OpenAI’s mission is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity,” the board said at the time. Facing pressure from its employees and investors, OpenAI reinstated Altman as chief executive less than a week after he was pushed out. A new board was put in place and members who supported ousting Altman left.

Altman said in the blog post that he has made mistakes and done things he’s not proud of, describing himself as “conflict-averse.”

“I am not proud of handling myself badly in a conflict with our previous board that led to a huge mess for the company,” he wrote.

Since his return, OpenAI has expanded its presence in healthcare, retail, defense and other industries. But controversy has followed the company. OpenAI is currently in a legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused the company of abandoning its nonprofit founding mission in a case that’s expected to head to trial. Musk, a co-founder and early investor in OpenAI, alleges he was manipulated into funding what he thought was a nonprofit but turned into a “moneymaking endeavor.” OpenAI alleges that Musk, who runs rival xAI, is suing to slow down a competitor.

Last week, the New Yorker published a lengthy story about Altman that posed the question about whether he could be trusted.

In his blog post, Altman referenced an “incendiary article” published about him but didn’t name the publication, adding that “words have power.” OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. On the social media site X, Altman said he regretted using certain words in his blog after an editor from the AI newsletter Transformer pointed out that Altman implied that a critical piece of journalism was responsible for the attack.

Altman said the attack happened at 3:45 a.m. on Friday but the Molotov cocktail “bounced off the house and no one got hurt.”

The San Francisco Police Department and OpenAI previously confirmed the attack on Friday. The suspect allegedly made threats to OpenAI’s headquarters after the attack at Altman’s home.

Several news outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, identified the suspect as Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama.

Moreno-Gama was booked on Friday on suspicion of making criminal threats, arson, attempted murder, possession of a destructive device and other charges. The Chronicle also cited a Substack that appeared to be from the suspect that includes posts titled “AI Existential Risk.”

The Times asked the San Francisco Police Department on Saturday whether the account belonged to the suspect.

“At this time we have no further updates to provide,” the department said in an e-mail.