On the heels of the public war of words between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, anxiety is mounting among the remaining staff of the Musk-founded Department of Government Efficiency, with some staffers worried not only about their future in government but about potentially becoming future targets of the administration, according to sources.
Some DOGE staffers still embedded across federal agencies fear that the rift and public mudslinging between Trump and Musk could leave them vulnerable to political retribution and damage their future job prospects, multiple sources familiar with internal discussions told ABC News.
Some fear their association with DOGE could make them targets if the feud escalates and Trump moves to investigate the government-slashing initiative that Musk led until he stepped away last week, the sources said.
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Others worry that if Trump distances himself from DOGE, their ties to it could become a professional liability, said sources.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, grew close to Trump over the last year as he campaigned for Trump’s reelection before helping launch DOGE to try to fulfill Trump’s goal of slashing the federal government. A quasi-governmental entity, DOGE has generated controversy as it’s shuttered government agencies and gained access to sensitive data.
The relationship between the president and the world’s richest person erupted into an exchange of insults on social media Thursday as Musk slammed Trump for “ingratitude” over the 2024 election while Trump threatened to “terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts.”
Amid the spat, War Room host and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of Trump who has been critical of Musk for years, has been calling for the president to launch investigations into the billionaire following Thursday’s blowup.
“This is a national security issue,” Bannon said on his show Thursday. “We’re dealing with a very unstable individual out saying dangerous things about the president of the United States. He must be investigated … and all government contracts should be suspended.”
Several of Musk’s top allies who served as special government employees with Musk, including Steve Davis, his longtime lieutenant and DOGE operational lead, departed DOGE last week along with Musk. But many DOGE employees remain embedded across federal agencies, including at the Office of Personnel Management, Veterans Affairs, Treasury, IRS, and Social Security Administration, sources said.
Still, Musk’s departure marked a major turning point for DOGE and how it will function day to day, given officials like Davis helped lead the DOGE team on a daily basis for months across the federal government.
In Musk’s absence, DOGE staff will continue to report to their respective agency leadership, sources said. Last week, the White House said that moving forward the “DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president’s cabinet and the president himself.”
Sources tell ABC News that some DOGE staffers still working inside the federal government have begun looking for jobs elsewhere. And while there is concern among some about their future career prospects, some major tech companies have expressed interest in hiring DOGE alumni — with companies like Coinbase even creating a dedicated hiring portal specifically recruiting former DOGE staff.
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Despite Trump and Musk’s public feud, the president has yet to publicly criticize DOGE during the war of words, and has previously lauded the initiative.
At a White House press availability in the Oval Office last week, Trump said Musk “delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington” and described DOGE as “the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations”.
Musk, for his part, downplayed the idea that DOGE needed him to survive as he left the Trump administration last week.
“DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism,” he said. “You wouldn’t ask the question, ‘Who would lead Buddhism?'”
