First things first: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is not an official department of the US government but rather a hybrid between an advisory agency and a pet project of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Despite the fact that it is neither part of the government nor headed by someone who was democratically confirmed in office, DOGE has been shaking up the US government apparatus since the start of Trump's second term in January. According to Trump, the aim is to cut unnecessary bureaucracy and limit the squandering of taxpayers' money through government cuts.

To date, Trump is highly satisfied with the work of Musk, his friend and presdiential campaign supporter.

"Elon is doing a great job. He's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste," Trump told reporters in early February.

However, opinions on this differ greatly.

"It's an absolute clown show," Patrick Malone, a professor in the department of Public Administration and Policy at American University in Washington DC, told DW. Malone said that Trump established DOGE because "it's flashy and something he can point to to show he's doing something."

A recent email sent to around two million government employees last weekend caused a commotion. By Monday, all of them needed to state in five bullet points what they did at work in the past week.

The request came from the Office of Personnel Management, the US government's human........

© Deutsche Welle