TODD HARRISON
Following through on a campaign promise, president-elect Donald Trump recently appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead an effort they are calling the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. While it is not actually a government department, the entity is likely to prove influential within the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress—at least initially. Its mandate is to cut federal spending, and Musk and Ramaswamy have made clear that the Pentagon is in their sights. “The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit,” the co-leaders wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent.”
Previous DoD efficiency initiatives have tried, and largely failed, to trim spending. This time will be different, one could argue, because Elon Musk is involved. He has done things in industry, such as revolutionizing space launch and electric vehicles, that many thought were impossible. To achieve these unlikely feats, Musk developed a ruthless approach that he calls “The Algorithm.” As recounted in Walter Isaacson’s biography, the Algorithm consists of five sequential steps: 1) question every requirement; 2) delete any part or process you can; 3) simplify and optimize; 4) accelerate cycle time; 5) automate. As Musk tries his hand at public policy, can this approach work?
Musk’s Algorithm has largely, and perhaps exclusively, been applied to high-technology and manufacturing-intensive sectors of industry. While the arm of DOD that develops and procures weapons fits this mold, acquisition consumes only about one-third of the defense budget in any given year. The other two-thirds of the budget go toward labor (military and civilian employees) and operations (training, military exercises, routine peacetime operations, housing, and military construction).
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