Less than three weeks into Trump’s second administration, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has descended on Washington. The organization—which doesn’t seem to be acting on legal authority—is shuttering USAID and encouraging career civil servants to leave the government. Some are calling it a “constitutional crisis.” Others are saying it’s Musk in “demon mode.”
It likely won’t be long before Musk and his team turn to the Pentagon, which he’s implied is run by “idiots.”
- The SpaceX CEO and Trump advisor has railed against cost-plus contracting, which he blames for the stagnation in defense innovation.
- Musk has called for an end to the legacy crewed platforms like the F-35 and a switch to automated and unmanned systems, like drones.
Exception to the rule: So, we had to ask. What the heck can DOGE actually do to the DoD?
Quite a lot, it turns out. Todd Harrison, an expert on defense strategy and budgeting at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told Tectonic that there are many authorities and exceptions already in place (like OTAs) that DOGE could use.
Many Pentagon authorities function at the behest of the President or the SecDef, and Harrison expects DOGE to lean heavily on those. “I think that wherever there are those…emergency authorities that can be triggered, they will trigger them. If people thought these were only ‘break glass in times of emergency,’ think again,” he said.
Harrison expects that DOGE will run a fine-toothed comb over all current Pentagon programs and crack down on those they see as overpriced, late, or misaligned with Trump’s priorities.
- Trump is expected to focus more on homeland security than conflicts abroad (such as in Europe and the Pacific), and Harrison expects the programs that get slashed will reflect that.
- Trump is likely to pull more defense decisions into the White House and the National Security Council.
- Harrison expects that DOGE and the Trump team will try to “crush” bureaucrats who try to block their changes.
Fall of the primes: This audit is likely to negatively impact the primes and be a boon for nontraditional defense tech companies, like Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX, as well as smaller start-ups, per Harrison. “If [these companies] are willing to work on fixed price contracts and accept more of the risk, then I think that there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for them,” he said.
Julia Gledhill, who studies military spending at the Stimson Center, expects that the US government will end up spending way more on defense under Trump and DOGE. SASC Chair Roger Wicker, a staunch advocate for acquisition reform and ally of Trump and Musk, has called for a $200B increase in military spending. Gledhill thinks that all defense contractors will benefit from Trump and DOGE, whether they’re primes or not.
“I think everyone will get what they want and more,” she said.
Both Gledhill and Harrison said that DOGE’s authority is dubious (Gledhill called it illegal), but it will need to be challenged in the courts and by Congress.
“It’s a separation of powers issue between the legislative branch and executive branch, but at least in the interim, it’s going to create a lot of chaos where people don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing and what they’re supposed to be following,” Harrison said.