Elon Musk, shown here leaving the White House on Tuesday night, is the world's richest man. But his signature government project, DOGE, might be facing a tighter leash from President Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Thursday seemed to knock billionaire Elon Musk back a notch, with adverse federal court rulings, anxious Republican lawmakers and the unpopularity of Musk’s move-fast-and-break-stuff efforts to gut the government seemingly convincing him to put DOGE on a leash.

Musk’s meme-inspired Department of Government Efficiency has directed mass layoffs of federal workers and the wholesale dismantling of federal agencies. But in a social media post on Thursday afternoon, Trump suggested DOGE would have less autonomy and need to be less reckless in its cuts in the future.

“DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and Staffing,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet.’”

Trump’s sudden focus on the work ahead for agency heads — and away from what DOGE has been doing — comes after a federal judge last week ruled that it was likely illegal for the Office of Personnel Management, where Musk acolytes have taken control, to direct agencies to fire thousands of employees.

The judge said OPM had no authority to do something only individual agencies can do. In what appeared to be an effort to stave off more lawsuits, days later, OPM abruptly changed its guidance to say it was actually up to agencies all along, not OPM, to fire people.

The shift by OPM is one of the clearest signs yet that the Trump administration knows that what it’s been doing is likely illegal. Musk, meanwhile, faces numerous further lawsuits challenging his appointment and DOGE’s actions as unconstitutional and unlawful.

Elon Musk, shown here leaving the White House on Tuesday night, is the world's richest man. But his signature government project, DOGE, might be facing a tighter leash from President Donald Trump.

In remarks from the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump........

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