The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), once touted as the Trump administration’s tip of the spear against waste, fraud, and corruption, has quietly ceased to exist—at least as a coordinated agency.
When it was launched in late January, DOGE—initially helmed by Tesla billionaire—and aspiring trillioniare—Elon Musk and championed by President Donald Trump—was given an 18-month mandate to slash federal regulation and spending.
But as Reuters first reported, the initiative closed its office eight months ahead of schedule, as
Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor confirmed to the outlet earlier this month, saying that DOGE “doesn’t exist.”
In the next paragraph, Kupor was quoted as saying that DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity.”
However, on Monday, Kupor took a swipe at Reuters’ reporting in an X post, accusing the outlet of splicing his full comments to “create a grabbing headline.”
“The truth is: DOGE may not have centralized leadership under @USDS [U.S. DOGE Service],” the OPM director wrote. “But, the principles of DOGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse; re-shaping the federal workforce; making efficiency a first-class citizen; etc.”
Realtor.com® reached out to the White House seeking comment on DOGE’s official status and was awaiting a reply.
According to Reuters, several DOGE alumni have since moved on to other positions in the Trump administration, including Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who was chosen to lead the National Design Studio—a White House initiative aimed at improving government websites.
DOGE’s own website has remained active as of Monday. A day earlier, DOGE’s X account posted that agencies throughout the federal government have terminated 78 “wasteful” contracts in the past nine days alone, saving $335 million.
DOGE estimates that since its inception, it has saved taxpayers $214 billion—far short of the $1 trillion in savings Musk initially projected.
Notably, over the past year, the U.S. national debt has ballooned by more than $2.18 trillion, reaching $38 trillion as of Nov. 5, according to the latest data released by the Republican members of the congressional Joint Economic Committee.
How DOGE started
Trump launched DOGE by executive order shortly after taking office in January, tasking the new entity with rooting out waste and corruption. The initiative carried a built-in expiration date of July 4, 2026.
Musk was tapped to lead DOGE and for months performed the role of the agency’s chief hype man, at one point even brandishing a bedazzled chain saw at a conservative conference to illustrate his commitment to cutting government jobs.
However, Musk’s tenure at DOGE ended abruptly in May after the tech mogul got into a very public feud with Trump over the president’s signature “big beautiful bill,” which the Tesla founder slammed as a “disgusting abomination.”
Musk left Washington, DC, following his falling-out with Trump. However, he made a surprise appearance in the capital last week, when he attended a glittering state dinner at the White House hosted by the president in honor of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Estimates of how many federal jobs were eliminated as a result of DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign vary. In a late August interview with the New York Times, Kupor bragged that by the end of December, there would be roughly 300,000 fewer employees on the payroll than in January.
Kupor largely attributed the reduction in the federal workforce to DOGE’s efforts, which were achieved through a combination of layoffs, voluntary resignations, buyouts, and early retirements.
How DOGE cuts affected housing
The thinning of the federal workforce under DOGE has created uncertainty in housing markets with a high concentration of government employees.
At the height of the DOGE purge, DC, where 11% of all employed residents are federal workers, saw its for-sale inventory surge.
To make matters worse, the record-long government shutdown, which came to an end earlier this month, disproportionately affected metros with large shares of federal employees, including Virginia Beach, VA, Oklahoma City, OK, and Baltimore, where buyers and sellers hit the pause button on transactions amid the uncertainty, according to the October monthly housing market trends report from Realtor.com.
Kevin Hughes, a DC-area real estate agent with The Group at Compass, tells Realtor.com he believes most people in the metro region “are breathing a sigh of relief” now that DOGE as we know it has effectively “disbanded.”
“With a large part of our market’s workforce relying on government-adjacent industries, the uncertainty around the DOGE cuts, National Guard presence, and then the government shutdown created a downturn in the DC market,” says Hughes.
The real estate professional adds that prices on condominiums in DC have decreased, although inventory in the suburbs has continued moving.
“I am sure many buyers gave pause on making large financial purchases during this time of uncertainty,” adds Hughes.