DOGE could be a mechanism for a Musk shadow presidency, a nonsense job designed to keep Musk busy without giving him real power, or a curious mix of the two. In any case, Musk and Ramaswamy have proposed cutting “thousands” of federal regulations and determining the “minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.

Weeks before it becomes official under the Trump presidency, DOGE is reportedly already planning to offer the public a free tax filing app to offset the potential effects of its promised massive budget cuts.