The bromance between the tech right and populist right is over, and DOGE appears to be both a cause and casualty of the schism. Elon has watched a lack of Congressional codification of the DOGE cuts — and the price tag of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill — amount to a massive, metaphorical middle finger to the agency’s core mission. A paltry $9.4b rescissions package with an uncertain future represents the full extent of efforts to codify DOGE-identified spending cuts, tens of thousands of federal worker firings are already being reversed, and the Big Beautiful Bill stands to add trillions of dollars to the deficit if passed. The debt bender rages on, it seems, and so-called sober minds can kick rocks!

From the beginning, Elon’s tenure was limited to 130 days, but DOGE was always meant to persist (at least until its preordained July 2026 dissolution). And sure, DOGE will continue to exist, but even with renowned DOGE employee “Big Balls” (engineer Edward Coristine) receiving full-time employment status, the agency may become more impotent than ever. Even before the Elon-Trump fallout, DOGE was not finding tangible success anywhere near its intended scale. Its original goal was to cut spending by $2 trillion. That became $1 trillion. Then $150b. Polymarket’s “how much spending will DOGE cut in [sic] first 6 months?” market is currently sitting at 97.2% “<$250b” (the lowest available option) and set to resolve in less than a month. The market for “Will Trump & Elon reduce the deficit in 2025?”, a retrospectively unfortunate pairing, is at a mere 8.4%. As recently as May 13th, it was at 20%.

The official DOGE savings tracker currently pegs costs cut at $180b. While it seems impossible to know how accurate that number is, independent estimates of “verified” and ostensibly retainable savings from DOGE cuts range everywhere from the single-digit-billions to around $60b. Studies out of Yale and UPenn are even claiming that some of DOGE’s actions will cost us billions of dollars (e.g. IRS firings could result in lower tax collections, research cuts will lead to future economic losses, etc.). But the question of which cuts will remain, or how it is even technically possible to shrink the budgets of these various agencies without congressional rescissions (the cancellation of previously appropriated funds), still appears largely unanswered. Under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the executive branch cannot unilaterally withhold funds Congress has appropriated without passing corresponding rescissions.