The Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting effort that tore through the federal workforce during the first months of Trump's second term, quietly went out of existence on July 4, 2026, in line with the executive order that set it to “terminate” on that date.
What it leaves behind is the opposite of savings. The Independent estimated an $11 billion hole from the Musk-authored “Fork in the Road” buyout, under which employees were paid full salary and benefits for nine months to do no work before formally resigning. It also leaves a gutted U.S. Agency for International Development, whose shuttered aid programs have been tied to preventable deaths around the world.
Now the reversal is underway. According to NOTUS, agencies that were slashed in early 2025 are staffing back up: the National Endowment for the Humanities has begun contacting former employees to interview for jobs now reposted on USAJobs. Over the first five months of 2026, the federal hiring site listed more than 104,000 new positions, nearly 40,000 more than the 68,900 posted in the last five months of 2025. The pattern undercuts DOGE's founding premise: many of the cuts are being unwound at additional taxpayer expense, after the disruption was already done (see Trump Gives Musk, Whose Companies Hold More Than $300 Billion in Federal Contracts, Power to Slash Spending, A Whistleblower Book Reveals Trump Appointees Thought USAID 'Did Abortions' Before Musk 'Fed It Into the Wood Chipper' and DOGE Promised $2 Trillion in Savings but Delivered $215 Billion (Probably Less) as Congress Actually Increased Spending).