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Elon Musk Plays DOGE Ball—and Hits America’s Geek Squad
Under Donald Trump, the United States Digital Service is morphing into Elon Musk’s cost-cutting machine.
“We specialized in painting ourselves that color of green.” When Covid hit, that became a feat in itself, as USDS worked closely with White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx on gathering statistics—some of which the administration wasn’t eager to publicize. In August 2014, I chronicled how the health care rescue team morphed into the USDS, attending a recruiting session where US chief technology officer Todd Park courted workers from the Valley’s most glamorous and lucrative companies. The president has given reformers like him leave, he told them, “to blow everything the fuck up and make it radically better.” This means taking on big-pocketed federal contractors, risk-averse bureaucrats, and politicians who may rail at overruns but thrive on contributions from those benefiting from the waste.
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