“What happened when the world’s most powerful man unleashed the world’s richest one on the world’s most complex institution?” That’s the question Wired writers set out to answer by interviewing more than 200 federal workers about the experience of living through DOGE’s upending of the US government. What they found was devastation and chaos, inflicted by ineptitude, arrogance, and ignorance:
During the early weeks of the administration, emails from DOGE started showing up in federal workers’ inboxes—or at least in their spam folders.
“I logged on to find several emails tagged ‘External,’ because DOGE just brought in their own servers and plugged them into the network. Then there were several subsequent emails from different leaders saying things like, ‘Thank you for all the phishing reports, but the emails are real and need to be followed. But also please keep reporting things that look like phishing. Except from DOGE … but probably even then. And this is totally fine and normal.’” —Contractor for the Veterans Administration
More picks about Elon Musk
The Zombie Regulator
“As the cost of living continues to spiral upward, the Trump Administration is gutting the government agency built to protect Americans from financial ruin.”
Baby-Making on Mars
“In the depths of the Cold War, scientists from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. joined forces to answer a still-urgent question: Can mammals reproduce in space?”
“We’re Too Close to the Debris”
“When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk chose a remote Texas outpost on the Gulf Coast to develop his company’s ambitious Starship, he put the 400-foot rocket on a collision course with the commercial airline industry.”
