Don Moynihan is the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy Subscribe to his Can We Still Govern? Substack.
Democracy depends upon a simple rule, what we might call the Spider-Man principle: with great power comes great responsibility. And responsibility in a democracy includes accountability: answering for actions taken using public power and resources. When this principle is violated, people reasonably start to wonder whether democracy still works.
It is hard to think of a greater violation of the Spider-Man principle than Elon Musk’s relationship with the U.S. government. For several months, the richest man in the world and a team of largely unknown underlings remade the federal government, dramatically shrinking the number of federal employees, eliminating agencies, cancelling government grants and contracts, and allegedly abusing Americans’ personal data.
DOGE justified its chainsaw approach on the premise that “the people voted for major reform.” Musk promised “It’s not going to be some sort of backroom secret thing. It will be as transparent as possible.” If that is the case, there should be no problem in explaining to the people what DOGE actually did.
Elon Musk has hosted Saturday Night Live more times than he has gone before Congress to talk about DOGE. He has been on Joe Rogan twice since he started DOGE. By finally asking Elon Musk and other DOGErs to answer for their actions, a Democratic Congress can reassure us that accountability still exists.
If Democrats start to investigate Musk and his DOGE aides, “we’ll have to protect them” said Trump, while also floating the idea of mass pardons for staffers. Given how Trump has created a corrupt pardon marketplace, even as he turns the DOJ on honest public servants, it further creates the impression that the rich and powerful are simply above the law.
The GOP cannot credibly hold their biggest donor accountable. Instead, they enable and reward Musk. The donor tail will wag the government dog as long as they hold power. So if the midterms do not empower Democrats to do so, we may was well give up on the idea that the powerful can be held accountable.
DOGE and the Death of USAID
This is a summary of a longer open-access piece appearing in the journal Public Administration and Development co-authored with Rachael Zuppke.
There has been no accountability for DOGE
The executive branch has offered no accounting of what DOGE did. The Department of Justice has not responded to allegations of legal violations. Instead, when reporters reported the most basic facts — who was working for DOGE — Elon Musk posted, “You have committed a crime,” and a compliant Department of Justice duly threatened the reporters for doing their job.
This fits with a pattern where the Trump administration has shielded DOGE from transparency and legal oversight processes such as Freedom of Information Act requests.
While some DOGE actions have been subject to court cases, the DOGE team itself remains largely untouched. The one instance where two DOGErs were deposed went viral precisely because it was so unusual. In another case, a judge explicitly rebutted the fiction that Musk was not the leader of DOGE, while also noting that he had defamed a federal employee by falsely claiming she had engaged in criminal action.
Even though the Senate formed a DOGE caucus, and the House formed a DOGE subcommittee, neither provided oversight. Both acted as cheerleaders to the gutting of government. They failed to ask DOGErs hard questions about what they were up to. When DOGE became unpopular, they stopped advertising their existence.
Previous Democratic efforts to subpoena Musk were blocked by Republicans, under extraordinary circumstances. For example, Republicans claimed that they won a voice vote about a Musk subpoena even though there were more Democrats in the room at the time. Democrats demanded a roll call to accurately tally the votes. The acting chair of the committee, Nancy Mace, then suspended its operations until enough Republicans could be hustled in to ensure Musk was protected.
When Republicans encountered hostile town hall meetings because of DOGE, Speaker Mike Johnson’s answer was not to address concerns, but to tell his colleagues to cancel the meetings.
Make Musk testify
DOGE eventually became enough of a liability to Trump that Musk was shown the door by Trump. But his exile was short-lived. Despite pledging to step away from politics, Musk is back, both as the biggest funder of Republicans and advising the Pentagon on weapons acquisition, even as his companies are major defense contractors. Other DOGErs are making money from their connections. They have been rewarded for their work, but never held accountable.
Make Elon Musk and other DOGErs testify under oath. They appeared on Fox News with other DOGErs to do PR for DOGE. A former DOGEr is doing interviews and writing op-eds to promote his DOGE book. If they have time for public engagements with friendly audiences, they can make time for Congress.
The last time Musk testified to Congress was in 2011. You can’t claim that democracy is functioning when a person who dramatically restructured the US government has never once explained why and how before the first branch of that government.
Senior DOGErs told their more junior colleagues “Guys, seriously, get your own lawyer if you need it. Elon’s great, but you need to watch your own back.” Sounds like pretty good advice now.
DOGE hearings could focus on:
Access and sharing of American’s personal data.
How decisions were made to cut grants and contracts.
Impacts of DOGE actions — bring in federal employees, grantees to explain how DOGE cuts made a difference to their work.
DOGE treatment of federal employees.
Conflicts of interest between DOGE actions and DOGE-connected businesses, new contracts and favorable regulatory actions provided to those businesses, including the ones that Musk owns.
Time to set the record straight
Putting people under oath to establish a factual record is substantively important, all the more so because we know the Department of Justice is making no effort to do this work.
Politically, this feels like a free lunch for Democrats for a number of reasons. DOGE was unpopular even before people understood that it was not actually fulfilling its promises, and even though most people agree with the DOGE premise that government is inefficient. This is from August of 2025:
One concern might be that normie Americans still view Musk as a great entrepreneur who builds cool stuff, and pursuing Musk will trigger a backlash. But surveys show that Musk is no longer viewed positively by most people, and the timing of the dip in his favorability ratings is very much aligned with his DOGE work. When he made himself the central actor in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, he lost. Public outrage about Musk has not disappeared because it was never addressed.
The reality is Musk is a major political player and should be treated as such. Musk broke his pledge to step back from politics post-DOGE to become the single largest donor (all for Republicans) for the second successive election cycle and still uses his X platform to spread misinformation about Democrats.
Part of the reason Musk poured so much money into the midterms is to avoid this accountability. He is already threatening potential investigators. When Politico reported that Democrats are interested in investigating Musk’s entanglements with government, including DOGE, Musk promised to retaliate.
As the results came in, Musk’s bravado disappeared. He stopped posting for several hours, and then deleted recent political posts. Musk, who left California complaining about blue state politics, watched as Texas turned blue. His $500 million investment in the midterms looked like small change compared to the $24 billion loss he incurred as his company’s value plummeted the next day. His investors were reminded that they are tied to a man who has placed his ego and culture war battles over their money and his companies.
The corruption connection
During World War II, Senator Harry Truman made himself a national figure investigating profiteering and fraud in defense spending. People were, understandably, outraged by the idea of private companies bilking the government. A similar opportunity exists now to connect public discontent with the richest man in the world’s ability to seemingly run, and profit from, our government.
Corruption is an incredibly rich target for Democrats, especially in areas like homeland security For example, we learned this week that ICE paid $495 million for a vacant prison whose owners failed to offload it for $75 million the year before.
I think Musk’s influence over Republicans and control of government services fits within the broader corruption narrative. When Musk took over government agencies, or recently compromised Ukraine’s defense system, leading Republicans were unwilling to say he had done anything wrong. They are afraid to cross their future benefactor.
The challenge for Democrats will be to use hearings to tell a broader coherent story about influence, capture and corruption that enables solutions to structural problems that have to be fixed. Jamie Raskin, who would lead the Judiciary Committee has said: “If the president is going to veto our actions, well then in the meantime, we’ll be zeroing in on all of the corruption, which is the true commitment of this administration.”
Credible signals from political parties are important for protecting democracy. DOGE hearings would send a signal to the public that accountability still exists, and that Trump-era impunity will not last forever. Democrats may not control the Department of Justice now, but they can use their Congressional authority to make the case that abuses of public power will eventually have to be answered for.
Without such accountability, we are effectively setting the stage for future DOGEs. We are accepting that Musk’s money and whims are more consequential for the society we live in than the democratic processes that the rest of us collectively participate in.
The article isn't here! Where is it other than your own Substack?
Great article reminding us all of the destruction that Elon and his DOGE did. Subpoena them. Round them up for questioning. Hold them all accountable. They were a travesty that should have never happened. Don't let slide this Congress. Accountability is NEEDED!