Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s time as the face of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has come to an end following the expiration of his time as a special government employee. 

Since January, Musk has been heading up DOGE, which was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget through efforts to slash spending, government programs and the federal workforce.

But how will the Trump administration look at DOGE now that Musk is gone?

So far, there are no signs that DOGE is being dismantled or that its efforts will be reversed, and former DOGE employees are infiltrating other areas of the Trump administration. Plus, President Donald Trump signaled that Musk could return in some capacity, although he did not dive into specifics. 

‘Elon’s really not leaving,’ Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. ‘He’s going to be back and forth … it’s his baby. And I think he’s going to be doing a lot of things. But Elon’s service to America has been without comparison in modern history.’

DOGE’s efforts to cut waste have led to roughly $175 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraudulent payment cuts, in addition to other steps to eliminate costs, according to a May 26 update from DOGE’s website. That translates to roughly $1,086.96 in savings per taxpayer, according to the website. 

Meanwhile, Musk signaled that despite his departure as a special employee, DOGE would only continue to pick up steam and that DOGE is now an essential aspect of the federal government. 

‘This is not … the end of DOGE, but really the beginning. My time as a special government appointee necessarily had to end,’ Musk said Friday in the Oval Office. ‘The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only grow stronger. I liken it to a sort of person of Buddhism. It’s like a way of life, so it is permeating throughout the government. And I’m confident that over time, we’ll see $1 trillion of savings, and a reduction in $1 trillion of waste, fraud reduction.’ 

The White House has said that DOGE leadership following Musk’s departure will continue through members of Trump’s Cabinet. 

‘The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president’s Cabinet and the president himself, who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday at a White House press briefing. 

‘The entire Cabinet understands the need to cut government waste, fraud and abuse,’ Leavitt said. ‘And each Cabinet secretary at their respective agencies is committed to that. That’s why they were working hand in hand with Elon Musk. And they’ll continue to work with their respective DOGE employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies. So surely the mission of DOGE will continue, and many DOGE employees are now political appointees and employees of our government.’

A senior White House official previously told Fox News Digital that DOGE is now part of the ‘DNA’ of the federal government, and that the agency will continue to function as it has done so far. 

‘The DOGE employees at their respective agency or department will be reporting to and executing the agenda of the president through the leadership of each agency or department head,’ the official said.

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report. 

Progressive California Rep. Maxine Waters’ campaign has agreed to pay a $68,000 fine after an investigation found it violated multiple election rules.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said the longtime House lawmaker’s 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, ran afoul of several campaign finance laws in a tranche of documents released Friday.

The FEC accused Citizens for Waters of ‘failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020,’ ‘knowingly accepting excessive contributions’ and ‘making prohibited cash disbursements,’ according to one document that appears to be a legally binding agreement that allows both parties to avoid going to court.

Waters’ committee agreed to pay the civil fine as well as ‘send its treasurer to a Commission-sponsored training program for political committees within one year of the effective date of this Agreement.’

‘Respondent shall submit evidence of the required registration and attendance at such event to the Commission,’ the document said.

Citizens for Waters had accepted excessive campaign contributions from seven people totaling $19,000 in 2019 and 2020, the investigation found, despite the maximum legal individual contribution being capped at $2,800.

The committee offloaded those excessive donations, albeit in an ‘untimely’ fashion, the document said.

Waters’ campaign committee also ‘made four prohibited cash disbursements that were each in excess of $100, totaling $7,000,’ the FEC said. 

The campaign committee ‘contends that it retained legal counsel to provide advice and guidance to the treasurer and implemented procedures to ensure the disbursements comply with the requirements of the Act.’

Leilani Beaver, who was listed as Citizens for Waters’ attorney, sent the FEC a letter last year that maintained the campaign finance violations were ‘errors’ that ‘were not willful or purposeful.’

Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has served in Congress since 1991.

The new movements in the probe were first reported by OpenSecrets.

It is not the first time, however, that Waters has generated public scrutiny.

In 2023, a Fox News Digital investigation found that Waters’ campaign paid her daughter $192,300 to pay for a ‘slate mailer’ operation between Jan. 2021 and Dec. 2022.

It was reportedly just one sum out of thousands that Waters had paid her daughter for campaign work.

A complaint that Waters’ campaign had accepted illegal campaign contributions in 2018 was overwhelmingly dismissed by the FEC in a 5-1 vote.

Fox News Digital reached out to Beavers, Waters’ congressional office and Citizens for Waters for comment.

Battleground Pennsylvania senators – Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dave McCormick – both spoke out against antisemitism during a bipartisan forum in response to a recent attack on a pro-Israel gathering in Colorado. 

‘This is something that I’m terribly worried about, the growth of antisemitism here in our country is something I know Sen. Fetterman and I share,’ McCormick said in the sixth installment of The Senate Project series, organized by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate and the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and aired by FOX Nation.

‘We see this deeply seated in our society,’ said McCormick, who recently returned from a trip to Israel. ‘And it’s something that we have to stand up against with complete moral clarity. It’s something that we have to push back, and it’s something we have to, require, a mandate that our institutions extricate themselves of antisemitism.’

Fetterman also condemned the Colorado attack, along with the other high-profile attacks against Jewish people in recent weeks, and pointed out that he is at odds with many in his party on the issue. 

‘What happened yesterday in Boulder? It’s astonishing,’ Fetterman said. ‘ You know, the kinds of, the rank antisemitism, it’s out of control, and for me and as my friend just pointed out, this is just rampant across all the universities for all of these places, too. I mean, we really need to call it what it is. And now and for me, politically, being very, very firmly on the side of Israel, that kind of put parts of my party at odds for that.’

Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman is now facing murder, assault and other charges following what the FBI called a ‘targeted terror attack’ in Boulder, Colorado, over the weekend after he allegedly attacked a pro-Israel group. 

Fox News Digital reported that Soliman is in the country illegally from Egypt.

‘Now we really lost,’ Fetterman continued, ‘we’ve lost the argument and – parts of my party, and for me – that moral clarity, it’s really firmly on Israel. And of course, we can all agree the tragedy in Gaza. Nobody wants that. But who does want that? And that’s Hamas. And if you have been troubled, as I am, the death and the misery, you know, I think we should blame Iran and Hamas, and other people blame Israel. I refuse to allow try to turn Israel into a pariah state.’

McCormick went on to say that ‘there needs to be constant pressure on Hamas, to destroy the military capability of Hamas.’

The Senate Project series brings together sitting senators from opposing parties for civil dialogue about current political issues, with the goal of identifying solutions and bridging partisan divides. The series reflects the shared mission of the Kennedy Institute and Hatch Foundation to advance bipartisanship.

‘Vigorous and open dialogue is an essential part of our democracy and having these two senators from opposite sides of the aisle discuss important issues of the day is a valuable contribution to the public discourse,’ Kennedy Institute Chairman Bruce A. Percelay said in a statement.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

As Elon Musk steps away from his official role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he joins a history of presidential administrations that have attempted to streamline government – with mixed results.

While former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland all tried to downsize the judiciary, treasury and civil service, respectively, it wasn’t until the 20th century that the federal government grew into the bureaucratic behemoth it is that has drawn true DOGE-type attention.

Though often seen as the bigger spenders, some Democrats joined Republicans in the 1990s to shrink the size of government and make it more accountable to taxpayers.

‘We know big government does not have all the answers,’ former President Bill Clinton said during his 1996 State of the Union.

‘We know there’s not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington – and we have to give the American people one that lives within its means.’

‘The era of big government is over,’ he said, in a phrase that had largely been considered the closest emulation of DOGE thought until Musk arrived on the scene.

Clinton also sought welfare reform and emphasized personal responsibility over dependency on the state.

The Arkansan also called for slashing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs and worked with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to balance the federal budget.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to do the same have received a very different response from the left.

Clinton, working with congressional Republicans – while also frequently sparring with them – was able to reduce the federal workforce somewhat and establish a budget surplus but also failed to realize entitlement reform, something that more recent fiscal hawks have also struggled with.

Clinton won his 1992 upset as a centrist, after incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush was lambasted for reneging on his ‘Read my lips – no new taxes’ pledge, with a statistical boost from industrialist independent H. Ross Perot, who won the votes of many erstwhile Bush supporters.

Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore established a National Performance Review (NPR) that drew some parallels to today’s DOGE, and cut the bureaucracy to 1960s levels.

Bill Clinton went on to win re-election over otherwise popular GOP stalwart Sen. Bob Dole, of Kansas, in 1996.

In 1980, actor-turned-California Gov. Ronald Reagan took the White House with promises similar to another celebrity-turned-politician who would do the same 36 years later.

The Gipper did not succeed in abolishing the Department of Education – created only a few years prior by President Jimmy Carter – something Trump has also sought.

But, he reinvigorated a new generation of conservatives who still praise him for slashing income taxes, seeking to ‘starve the beast’ via forced discretionary-spending cuts, and took on public-sector unions when he essentially won a dare against air traffic controllers who went on strike by firing them all and prohibiting their rehiring.

Reagan’s closest iteration of DOGE was the 1982 Grace Commission, studying cost-cutting and efficiency – and led by Maryland chemical executive J. Peter Grace along with dozens of ‘commissioners’ plucked from the private sector.

In the executive order creating the Grace Commission, it was tasked with examining ‘the entire federal government for areas of inefficiency, mismanagement and waste, and to recommend savings without raising taxes or cutting essential services.’

Within its three-year lifespan, the commission reported $424 billion in savings, including waste, fraud, abuse, over payments to government vendors and billions in unpaid taxes.

Reagan, however, faced the same resistance from the proverbial ‘Swamp’ in trying to implement the commission’s findings.

‘We’re not trying to hurt anyone. But the American taxpayer is being ripped off,’ Grace said at the time.

While ushered in as a conservative pragmatist, Reagan’s later years saw budget deficits grow, and the national debt more than double. The Dow also lost nearly one-quarter of its value on ‘Black Monday,’ Oct. 19, 1987.

The other contemporary president known for trying to ‘DOGE’ government was Texas Democrat Lyndon Johnson. LBJ was known for rapidly expanding government through his ‘Great Society’ social programs but also took aim at streamlining the Pentagon and Defense apparatus.

Efforts at the Pentagon largely failed, as the ongoing Vietnam War also accentuated costly balance sheets.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a Kennedy holdover and former Ford Motor Company chief, was employed to make changes at the Pentagon.

He instituted what was called the Planning Programming Budgeting System, which sought to bring a more streamlined approach to managing the Pentagon’s budget.

However, the vast size of the defense bureaucracy – along with resistance from some military leaders – undermined the effectiveness of Johnson’s and McNamara’s reform efforts.

The Trump administration has rolled out a new rule with the aim of making it easier to terminate federal employees for serious misconduct by cutting through the red tape that currently impedes that process. 

‘The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing amendments to the Federal Government personnel vetting adjudicative processes for determining suitability and taking suitability actions,’ the rule, which went live for public comment on Monday morning, states. 

‘The purpose of the proposed rule is to improve the efficiency, rigor and timeliness by which OPM and agencies vet individuals for risk to the integrity and efficiency of the service, and to make clear that individuals who engage in serious misconduct while employed in Federal service are subject to the same suitability procedures and actions as applicants for employment.’

OPM says its new rule is part of President Trump’s ‘Implementing the Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative’ as well as the Presidential Memorandum, ‘Strengthening the Suitability and Fitness of the Federal Workforce.’

OPM explains that the new rule will allow the federal government to take action against employees who engage in misconduct after being hired, giving agencies ‘broader authority’ to ‘flag conduct’ including tax evasion, leaking of sensitive information, and other behavior ‘inconsistent with the public trust.’

‘For too long, agencies have faced red tape when trying to remove employees who break the public’s trust,’ OPM’s Acting Director, Chuck Ezell, told Fox News Digital. 

‘This proposed rule ensures misconduct is met with consequence and reinforces that public service is a privilege, not a right.’

Under the new rule, federal agencies will be able to refer specific cases to OPM requesting ‘suitability action’ for employees who are believed to have committed post-appointment conduct that deserves disciplinary action. 

Fox News Digital reported in 2023 that under current law, the vast majority of the federal workforce is not at-will and may only be terminated for misconduct, poor performance, medical inability and reduction in force. Federal employees are also entitled to sweeping due process rights when fired which can create a cumbersome process for agencies to remove a worker.