WSJ: Inside the split between DOGE giants Musk and Ramaswamy

Author: Ken Thomas, John McCormick, The Wall Street Journal; Compiler: 0xxz@Golden Finance

The Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) was originally conceived as a joint operation between Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outside the federal government. Now, it is entirely Musk's responsibility - and he has also entered the federal government.

Musk's vision for DOGE and his 24/7 online advocacy quickly won victory in President Trump's first few days in office, as Ramaswamy has returned to his hometown of Ohio and plans to announce plans to run for Ohio governor in 2026 next week, and DOGE operations have also fallen into the new presidential administration. Musk has been working in the West Wing office of the White House this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The tensions and philosophical differences between the two billionaires soon emerged. They first met in 2023, when Ramaswamy was still challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

People familiar with the matter said Trump's core aides were annoyed by Ramaswamy's outspokenness on almost all topics, a tendency that also irritated Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

"There's always a conflict between two CEOs who built successful companies," said a person familiar with DOGE. "Everyone saw the clues."

Ramaswamy frequently posts on Musk's X platform, but in late December 2024, he published a long post during a debate on H-1B visas, suggesting that some American technology companies hired foreign workers in part because American culture "has long valued mediocrity over excellence," which also angered some Trump supporters and aides.

The split was partly due to DOGE’s increasing focus on cutting spending, which Musk has championed, and less on cutting regulation and bureaucracy, which Ramaswamy has led, according to another person familiar with the matter.

There was “no hard feelings” between Musk and Ramaswamy, but “Ramaswamy’s ability to do the job changed as the scope of his responsibilities narrowed and shifted, so he decided to resign,” the person said.

During the Trump transition, there was internal speculation about whether DOGE would be set up inside government, perhaps as a federal advisory committee or as an outside think tank or nonprofit. Ramaswamy has long argued that the work needed to be done outside government.

“We concluded that if this was going to be done, it had to be done by outsiders, and in many ways it had to be done from the outside,” he told The Wall Street Journal in November. "Politicians have long talked about reducing the size of the federal government. Doing it the standard way is not going to work."

But the president's executive order on his first day in office made it clear that DOGE would operate within the executive branch, a rebrand of the United States Digital Service, which was created by the Obama administration after the initial failure of the Obamacare website. The agency's responsibility is to upgrade information technology services at federal agencies.

The new agency will be called the United States DOGE Service, and its managers will report to White House Chief of Staff Suzy Wells. The executive order requires federal agencies to establish DOGE teams, including team leaders, engineers, human resources experts and lawyers. It is not clear whether these employees are new or will be paid. Musk initially said on X that the compensation would be "zero."

DOGE, which operates largely in secret through encrypted messages exchanged by employees on Signal, is soon facing a lawsuit. On Monday, advocacy groups Public Citizen and the State Defenders of Democracy Foundation, as well as the American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union, filed a lawsuit alleging that DOGE failed to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act because its meetings are held in secret and records have not been released to the public.

One aspect of Trump’s executive order — a nod to one of Musk’s key priorities — urges agencies to implement DOGE’s agenda to “maximize government efficiency and productivity by modernizing federal technology and software.” Musk’s effort, which will give him deeper insight into governments with which he does significant business, is expected to be completed by July 4, 2026.

The executive order “came a lot of people by surprise” because it brought DOGE, which was originally conceived as an outside entity, into the executive branch, one of the people said. The executive order was crafted in the past two weeks, the person said.

“Elon was for it, Vivek was against it. I don’t think it captures the original mission and vision of DOGE that Trump outlined two months ago,” the person said.

A person familiar with DOGE said that initially both sides had a “rough understanding” that Musk and Ramaswamy would be “equal partners” in the project, but both sides accepted that Musk would be the “senior partner” because of Musk’s global stature and his relationship with Trump.

The idea was that Ramaswamy would focus on the constitutional arguments for deregulation and cutting government, two topics he has talked about for years in his writings and on the campaign trail. Musk would focus on the technical part of the mission and using AI to reduce the federal workforce.

Once it was decided that DOGE would not be an outside entity, Ramaswamy knew it would conflict with his goal of running for governor of Ohio because of the disclosures and other requirements of being part of the federal government.

Next week, Ramaswamy is expected to announce his candidacy to succeed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, a more traditional Republican, when his term expires after he completes his second term.

“He doesn’t have a lot of credibility running as a federal employee,” the person said.