Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has reached the self-destruct date written into its own founding charter, closing an eighteen-month experiment that thinned the federal workforce and dragged Americans' most sensitive records into open court.
President Donald Trump created the commission on his first day back in office and always meant for it to expire on 4 July 2026, a deadline he framed as a birthday gift to the nation. What DOGE leaves behind is disputed on almost every front, from the billions it says it saved to the young engineers it placed inside the government's most guarded databases.
