Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E to shut down NASA

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) is officially inside NASA, with its staff set to dig through every financial record at the space agency. Acting Administrator Janet Petro confirmed the development on Wednesday while speaking to reporters at a Washington conference.

“So we are a federal agency; we are going to have D.O.G.E come,” Petro said. “They are going to look—similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies—at our payments.”

NASA’s multi-billion-dollar budget is now under the microscope as Elon’s handpicked government-efficiency team embeds itself within the agency. President Donald Trump tasked the Tesla CEO with eliminating waste in federal institutions, and NASA is the next target.

NASA braces for scrutiny from Elon’s team

“Any employee or any person that’s coming in, we will check out their conflict of interest, make sure they don’t have any conflicts of interest with any of the companies that we work with,” Petro told the reporters.

Elon addressed the concerns himself during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday. He denied that D.O.G.E would favor SpaceX when assessing NASA contracts, saying that he does not personally handle SpaceX’s government agreements.

SpaceX, however, is one of the primary contractors responsible for launching national security satellites for the Pentagon, adding to the complexity of the situation.

Elon has repeatedly called NASA’s spending inefficient. In December, he took aim at the Artemis program, writing on X that it “is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program.” He added, “Something entirely new is needed.” With D.O.G.E now inside NASA, the program’s future is in question.

Elon ramps up efforts to shut down entire agencies

Speaking via video link at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Thursday, Elon said his goal was to permanently eliminate multiple U.S. agencies. “I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind,” Elon said. “It’s kind of like leaving a weed. If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed—it doesn’t stop weeds from ever growing back, but it makes it harder.”

Under Elon’s leadership, D.O.G.E has already dismantled key government departments. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which oversees billions in foreign aid, has been gutted. Most of its employees have been furloughed, and its funding is frozen.

The Trump administration announced in early February that USAID would be moved under the State Department, but Congress still needs to approve the restructuring.

Elon’s team is also in the process of shutting down the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Department of Education. These agencies are being stripped of power as D.O.G.E continues its aggressive push to restructure the federal government. Elon believes these cuts will reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion by 2026.

“Nothing’s forever,” Elon said, acknowledging that future administrations could reverse some of these changes. “But I think we can strengthen the foundations of the United States substantially.”

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