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Billionaire Elon Musk’s new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is attracting interest from an unlikely corner: the left.
Progressives are likely to support much of what Musk and his partner, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, aim to do with DOGE: Cut about $2 trillion from the federal government, which could include programs critical to Americans.
But Musk has been critical of unnecessary spending at the Pentagon and over-budget programs run by defense contractors, potentially aligning DOGE with progressive lawmakers who have long called for cuts to a defense budget that approaches $1 trillion a year .
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made headlines when he said Musk was “right” about defense spending, because the Pentagon has “lost track of the billions.”
“Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That has to change,” Sanders wrote on social platform X.
Other progressive lawmakers have also supported the opportunity to potentially work with DOGE on the Pentagon budget.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a progressive lawmaker who has long pushed to cut the Pentagon’s budget, said he wasn’t sure whether DOGE was a “complete joke” or a “game toy” for to Musk.
“Elon Musk is a little bit more of a colorful figure than an expert on government funds,” he said, but “if they really give them some staff and make some responsible efforts and seek bipartisan input, like I said, I’m more than willing to try to work with them on things, but especially on the defense budget”.
Progressive policy analysts are also taking the new DOGE commission with a grain of salt, but say they would welcome any real cuts.
Stephen Semler, a non-resident senior fellow at the progressive think tank Center for International Policy, said he was approaching DOGE “with high scrutiny, but with optimism.”
“If there’s common ground, we play ball,” he said. “But I think there needs to be more dialogue leading Musk and creating a wave of public support, encouraging him and DOGE to focus on Pentagon waste.”
DOGE will serve as an advisory commission under President-elect Trump, who in his first term increased the defense budget.
But Musk, who poured in a quarter of a billion dollars to support Trump’s campaign, he appears to have the president-elect’s ear, at least on some decisions. Whether he is open to tightening the Pentagon budget is an open question.
Phyllis Bennis, program director at the progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies, said Trump “is on five sides” and there is uncertainty about whether he would support cuts to a Pentagon budget that she said is “absurdly bloated “.
“I have no sense, and I certainly wouldn’t make any predictions, about how he would respond to a proposal from Elon Musk about cutting the military budget,” he said. “They (Trump) certainly love the big giant corporations that make a lot of money, and that pretty much describes the military producers.”
Bennis said she was skeptical that DOGE would trigger a real effort to cut the Pentagon’s budget, which she said should focus on operations, such as cutting the 750 military bases the US operates around the world when the Washington’s biggest rival, China, has only four.
“I’m not so sure (Musk) is going to look at almost a trillion dollars in military spending … and how it distorts spending across the country,” he said. “If it did, that would be a good thing.”
Most of the more than $6 trillion federal budget goes to mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare, but defense is the next largest piece of funding and the largest share of discretionary spending. If Musk wants to make big cuts, he’ll likely have to target one of these areas.
In a Wall Street Journal Opinion Edition Last month, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would cut the federal workforce and earmark federal spending “not authorized” by Congress, such as grants to international organizations or progressive groups.
They also pointed to the federal procurement process and contracts that “have gone unexamined for years,” noting that the Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit this year, which they said suggested that “agency leadership He has no idea how his annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent.”
Musk has often been critical of what he sees as unnecessary spending at the Pentagon.
“Our defense budget is quite gigantic. It’s a trillion dollars,” he said he said in an act last month “The interest we owe on the debt is now higher than the defense budget. This is not sustainable.”
And in a post about X, Musk noted concerns about the F-35 fighter jet program, which has long faced scrutiny for its high cost, production delays and lack of reliability.
On Capitol Hill, some Democrats see the comments as a possible indicator that Musk is serious about defense cuts.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement that he would welcome “a real effort to reduce the bloated and wasteful defense budget that only enriches defense contractors and does nothing to make Americans safer.”
And Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee, said “defense contractors are ripping off the American taxpayer.”
“We should work with DOGE to curb waste and fraud, increase competition and invest in technology that will strengthen our national security,” Khanna said in a statement.
DOGE is only an advisory group, and even if Trump supported the defense cuts, Congress would have to sign off.
Most of Congress continues to support increasing the defense budget, including the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who has called for a “generational” investment in defense to make facing a challenging geopolitical security. environment
Peter Juul, director of national security at the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, said the defense budget should increase given the dangerous state of the world, although he agreed the Pentagon could be more efficient.
“It’s hard to see where you can do well at this point, unless you’re (proposing) massive staff cuts,” he said. “You might be able to shave a little off the top line, but it’s not going to be this massive savings.”
On Capitol Hill, Juul said there is “more desire” to “keep things where they are or push them even further,” calling the hope of defense cuts “a wishful thinking of progressives.”
But some Republicans are leaving the door open to defense cuts, including Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa), a veteran who leads a new DOGE caucus in the Senate.
“Senator Ernst believes it is time to declare war on unnecessary spending across the entire federal government, including the Pentagon, which has failed seven consecutive audits and has $125 billion in unnecessary bureaucratic spending,” the senator’s spokesman said .
Pocan said there is room on Capitol Hill to persuade some of his colleagues.
“We make people who talk the talk walk the walk. If they really want to cut spending and have a more efficient and leaner government, then why wouldn’t you care about something where there is a definite and indisputable inefficiency?
Musk and Ramaswamy met with Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday to discuss DOGE and possible federal cuts, but the meetings were light on details.
In addition to the F-35 program, progressives have long decried a list of wasteful Pentagon initiatives, including the Littoral Combat Ship, a 22-year effort to deploy small warships near shore . The Navy, which has spent billions on the program only to decommission some ships a few years after they were built, is now shying away from buying more ships.
The United States is also spending more than $1 trillion over several years to modernize its nuclear triad of bombers, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles, the last of which has been criticized for rising costs and irrelevance.
And defense contractors, which account for more than half the defense budget, have long been accused of overcharging the Pentagon for basic services like soap dispensers, which Boeing overcharged. almost 8,000 percent.
Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog, said there is “no shortage” of opportunities for DOGE if it wants to make cuts, explaining that his organization is making a list that the commission could use.
Murphy singled out excess base capacity as an area for cuts, noting that the Pentagon has said yes 19 percent more staff to the military bases of the necessary.
“We hope that this can lead to serious, thoughtful and targeted cuts,” Murphy said. “Reducing inefficient and inefficient spending practices ultimately strengthens national security, (which) is not achieved by a certain amount of dollars. It is achieved by a good strategy. And having a strong strategy (is) operating from a way informed by the budget”.
