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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ben Makuch

Elon Musk’s gutting of US agencies is illegal, experts say. How do you muzzle Doge?

A man adjusting a cap on his head which reads 'Make America great again'
Elon Musk at a Trump campaign event at the Butler Farm Show on 5 October 2024, in Pennsylvania. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

In 2022, the Pentagon proudly announced a committee on diversity and inclusion, with a marine veteran and senior director at Tesla, serving as a member. The same person, who spent nearly six years at Tesla, also helped push Elon Musk to make Juneteenth a company-wide holiday. But Musk is a notorious recipient of lucrative government contracts and changes with the winds of presidential administrations.

Now in 2025, as a “special government employee” heading up the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Musk is going to war with those kinds of government diversity and inclusion programs and slashing whatever he sees as a “waste” of public coffers.

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