The Department of Government Efficiency — better known by its ticker-friendly acronym DOGE — officially shut down over the weekend, hitting the July 4 sunset date baked into its founding executive order. In a final post on X, the agency announced its formal mission had ended, but quickly added that the broader goal of cutting waste and fraud isn't going anywhere.

"While the formal mission of DOGE has come to an end, the mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse will continue," the agency wrote. "Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives."

DOGE was created in January 2025 by President Donald Trump, who set the termination date to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. At the time, Trump called it "a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy" — a gift to America on its birthday.

The agency's website has already been deactivated. The page that tracked DOGE's savings listed an estimated $215 billion as of Sunday, a figure that includes canceled contracts and leases, reduced software licenses, workforce changes, and grant cuts. But that number has been disputed, and the agency's own documentation doesn't fully back up the headline total.

DOGE wasn't just about cutting costs. In February, it open-sourced what it called the largest Medicaid dataset in the department's history, aiming to help identify fraud patterns and make government data more accessible.

Legacy Remains Under Debate

Elon Musk, the Tesla (TSLA) CEO who led DOGE's cost-cutting efforts after Trump returned to the White House, stepped down in May. He had previously said the "final step" for DOGE would be to "delete itself."

But not everyone thinks the agency's work should have ended. In May, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban argued that DOGE should have evolved into an "AI Native" government initiative, using artificial intelligence to streamline federal services and improve productivity — rather than just focusing on fraud and waste.

The White House, for its part, says the efficiency push will continue even without the agency. Spokesperson Davis Ingle told Politico that Trump had made significant progress in reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought also said the administration does not plan to issue a final DOGE report.

So DOGE is gone — but the idea that government can be run more like a startup (or at least with fewer duplicate software licenses) isn't going anywhere.