Trump's cabinet ready to reassert power as Musk steps back

Members of President Donald Trump's cabinet will likely move to limit the influence of Department of Government Efficiency employees and reassert control over budgets and staffing once Elon Musk steps back from DOGE, two government sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The Department of Government Efficiency, created by executive order the day Trump took office and helmed by billionaire Musk, has spearheaded efforts to shrink the federal workforce and slash the deficit via mass firings, contract cancellations and reduced services to Americans across the federal government. 

But Musk confirmed plans on Tuesday to reduce his government time commitment to one or two days a week to focus on his battered car company Tesla raising questions about the future of the agency's work. As a special government employee, his mandate appeared due to expire at the end of May.

The billionaire has provided the White House with political cover while DOGE pursued a cost-cutting drive that has made it deeply unpopular among career staffers. Cabinet secretaries view DOGE employees as encroaching on their traditional authority to hire and fire, and some have been reluctant to do its bidding. 

In recent weeks, tensions had escalated within the Trump administration over the authority granted to Musk. During a March cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed with Musk, accusing him of undermining USAID and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confronted Musk over proposed layoffs of air traffic controllers amid aviation safety concerns, sources familiar with the situation said.

The most significant shift will be the increased authority of the cabinet itself. Agency heads will now have the final say on which proposals move forward, solidifying their role at the center of federal efficiency and spending strategy.

The cabinet will have more autonomy and will no longer need Musk's sign-off on every decision, said one of the sources.

The shifting leadership dynamics within DOGE will also lead to a reassessment of the roles and responsibilities of young engineers initially hired by Musk to staff DOGE.

The engineers' influence may diminish, the source said, adding that they will come under increased scrutiny. The source said the qualifications and authority of the coterie of young engineers with little government experience will be questioned.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields pushed back on the idea that Musk stepping back from his role signals a shift in the direction or influence of DOGE.

"The way DOGE has been designed is that the Cabinet already has that autonomy over spending cuts. DOGE has just been an element of the agency," Fields said. "There will be no changes. DOGE is running effortlessly. In a way it's almost on cruise control, and it's working well within the federal government to execute the President's agenda," Fields said.

Many DOGE-watchers, from academics to advocates for and against his agency's work, see the budget slashing efforts continuing apace despite Musk's shift to part-time work, citing executive orders that have set the wheels in motion and Trump Cabinet officials on board with his agenda.

"A lot of what DOGE has done has been internalized by a lot of these agencies, and it's going to keep moving forward," said Nick Bednar, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School who has been tracking the government layoffs, and who sees government agencies as unlikely to reverse the cuts DOGE has made.

"There's a train that's left the station, it's difficult to stop," Bednar said.

'Mostly done' 

Musk, a top backer of Trump in the 2024 election and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and executive chairman of X, is the ideological driving force behind the government overhaul. He has installed top lieutenants at key government agencies, while dispatching former staffers of X and SpaceX across a swath of federal agencies to oversee deep staff cuts.

He has had his fingerprints on a host of White House initiatives, from a federal hiring freeze, to several rounds of government-wide buyout offers, as well as a directive to agencies to craft restructuring plans to reduce their staffs. His demand that federal workers account for what they have achieved in time-consuming weekly emails was initially enforced by most cabinet secretaries but has now mostly stopped.

"The large slug of work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and working in the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done," Musk said on Tuesday.

With Musk turning to his business, DOGE will need to find another leader. One possibility is Amy Gleason, who in February the White House named as acting administrator. She said in a court filing on March 19 that Musk does not work at DOGE. Trump himself has contradicted that by saying on numerous occasions that Musk is in charge.

However, it has never been clear what his role day to day is, and that will become even more important to clarify in the lead up to his departure.

Tom Schatz, a proponent of DOGE's mission and president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, said his exit could make DOGE more effective.

Musk "is a lightning rod" who "draws attention to whatever he does," he said. With Musk taking a small role, "it will be... maybe more effective because of less attention played to him."