DOGE is the acronym for the United States Department for Government Efficiency. Mired in controversy, it was created with so much swagger by President Donald Trump at the start of his non-consecutive second term last January 20. DOGE has been synonymous with Elon Musk. As president it was within Trump’s remit to create a new government department, but he shares this power with the US Congress [parliament] which should ordinarily give such institutions legal teeth through legislation. The president appoints the heads of the departments with some of the nominees requiring screening and confirmation by the senate, the generally regarded upper chamber of the legislature . The departments are part of the executive branch of government, and are responsible for implementing specific policies and programmes. Prominent departments in the US federal government include Department of State which is responsible for foreign policy and international relations; Department of Defence for national defence and military operations; Department of Education for education policy and programmes [Trump says he will scrap it, anyway]; and, Department of Health and Human Services which is charged with healthcare and social services. Though the executive and legislative branches share in responsibilities in creating departments, only the Congress has the authority to abolish departments through legislation. However, the president can reorganise or merge departments through executive orders though that is subject to Congressional oversight. But all these fanciful arrangements backed by law in some cases and convention in others were before the second coming of Donald Trump.

Some of the processes and conventions that had been taken as given have been casually upended by the new sheriff in town. Trump may have been emboldened by the fact that while he was out of power and office, and was facing trial for some alleged wrongdoings in his first incarnation as president, the US Supreme Court [SCOTUS] ruled that a president could not be tried for any offences he might have committed in the course of his official duty. The controversial ruling by the SCOTUS appears to fly in the face of the American Constitution which prescribed equality before the law. The Constitution did not explicitly state that ‘nobody is above the law’, but it contains principles that imply equality under the law, that was until the SCOTUS ruled otherwise in 2024. Before then it was widely believed that the Constitution was based on the rule of law, which means that everyone, including government officials, is subject to the law. The 14th equal protection clause prescribes that no state shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws’. And this clause has been interpreted to mean that individuals should be treated equally under the law. In addition, the grundnorm system of checks and balances was supposedly designed to ensure that no one branch of the US government has absolute power. The intent should be to help curb abuses of authority. So, though the phrase that ‘nobody is above the law’ was not directly stated in the Constitution, it had been a fundamental principle of the 249 years old American democracy, until it seems not to be so again because of Trump.

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DOGE was created as a US government department by Trump on January 20 via an executive order. It was Trump’s first day in office and it was among the more than allegedly 100 executive orders signed by the president that day alone. Some watchers of the American presidency claimed that the action was unprecedented. Tech billionaire who’s the owner of the e-vehicle company Tesla, and SpaceX, among others, Elon Musk, was tapped to head the new agency. Opponents derisively describe Musk as the man who bought the presidency for Trump by his injection of almost $300 million into Trump’s campaign. He was an early endorser of Triumph for president. He was prominent in stomping for him on the campaign trail. He virtually lived with Trump in Mar-a-Lago in the weeks before the November 5, 2024 presidential election. He had a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration on January 20. And also lived with Trump in the White House in the days after the inauguration. He attended cabinet meetings while the bromance lasted. Musk was an unrepentant advocate for small government and curbing alleged waste in the public sector. He rails against subsidies but ironically his businesses ranked very high in receiving subsidies from the government. So in the eyes of Trump, Elon Musk was the unrivaled man for the job of rolling back the government, or in their words cutting out ‘fraud, waste, and abuse’ in government operations. So DOGE under Musk was mandated to reduce public expenditures by reviewing government contracts, eliminating unnecessary spending, and cutting bureaucratic red tape; to detect fraud by identifying and preventing fraudulent activities in federal spending, ensuring transparency and accountability; to streamline processes through the deployment of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies to automate and accelerate administrative processes; and, to enhance productivity by restructuring federal agencies to ensure higher productivity and transparency. To detractors the only ‘achievement’ of Musk in his 130 days long employment in government was taking and brandishing a chainsaw at a public event to dramatise how he intended to deal a lasting and deadly blow to the US federal government bureaucracy. It was a jarring spectacle. By the way, Trump employed Musk as a special adviser to avoid his being required to be screened by the senate. It was feared that it would’ve been a very contentious screening that the narrow majority of the ruling Republican Party may not save him. Musk was that toxic to some politicians across the aisle.

In no time Musk’s 130 days as a special government employee expired and he had to step down. Even his departure was as controversial as his entry. When their quarrel started simmering Trump said he was sacked but Musk countered that the president lied. Days after Elon Musk started attacking Trump’s so-called ‘one big beautiful bill’ which encapsulated the key ingredients of his presidency. Musk called the budget bill a ‘disgusting abomination’, ‘utterly insane’, ‘pork-filled’, and ‘destructive’. He said it was a reversal of the job he [Musk] thought he had accomplished with DOGE. There was a very public falling out between Trump and Musk. Musk said that the bill would balloon the debts which already hover around $37 trillion. But Trump said that Musk’s grouse was because the bill would cut off subsidies to Tesla, Elon Musk’s signature company. Musk threatened that he would ensure the defeat of any lawmaker who voted to support the passage of the bill into law during the midterm election in November 2026. In addition, Musk claimed that without him Trump would have lost the presidential election last November, and Republicans would not have won their narrow majority in the house of representatives. He even suggested that Trump should be impeached and that Trump’s name featured prominently in the Jeffrey Epstein files/tapes which was why the Republican-led government had refused to release the files. Epstein was a friend of Trump. He was a convicted sex trafficker and pedophile. He died in prison in 2019. Musk later walked back some of his allegations against Trump but it was too late. Trump was piqued. He said that DOGE, that same DOGE that Musk used to terrorise others, may be unleashed on Musk and his businesses for alleged ‘fraud, waste and abuse’. And then the clincher. President Trump said that Musk, a naturalised American citizen, could be deported to his native South Africa. So the men who started the American presidency as ‘First Buddies’ gradually became ‘First Monsters’ or ‘First Enemies’. Who blinks first.

This will be hard to figure out. Trump as the US president is the most powerful man in the world. Musk, the tech billionaire, is the richest man in the world. No other person could afford to lose about $140 billion in one trading day last month in the valuation of one of his firms in the stock market, and about $37 billion in his personal wealth and still remain the richest man in the world. The Trump-Musk tussle might yet turn out to be a case of two elephants fighting. Not likely. In this fight none may come out of it unscarthed. Trump may have the power ‘to do and undo’ as we say here in Nigeria when talking about a person with unrivaled power, but Musk is at the heart of America’s global economic power. Tesla’s biggest manufacturing plant outside the US is in China, a country that has been projected to dethrone America as the number one in the global economic ranking. And China is helping to stoke the row between Trump and Musk. It’s also courting and making offers to Musk and his businesses if the US becomes antagonistic and unaccommodating. Trump may be irrational, egoistic, unconventional and unpredictable, but he surely knows where to draw the line in the overall interest of the US. He will not hand over any advantage on a platter to China, a mortal rival in the war for global supremacy. These are men with big egos. But they will settle because they have so much to lose if their face-off spirals out of control. However, settling for now will not prevent them from quarreling again. Soon. And probably throughout the presidency of Donald J. Trump in the next three and half years. The setting up of the America Party by Musk to rival the traditional two-party system in the US – Democrats and Republicans – will not make the prospects of future frictions any better. Indeed, Musk could just be opening multiple battle fronts against traditional and professional politicians in the US. That could prove an Achilles heel for him. For over 150 years no third political party has produced a president of the United States. It may not be about to change in spite of the enormous wealth of Elon Musk, and what appears to be the appetite of Americans for a change.