to continue its work after his departure. In less than four months, the DOGE effort has become embedded across the government — from personnel in key positions, to work already underway to remake agencies’ sometimes decades-old software systems, to a government-wide push to build a master database of sensitive personal data that would speed up immigration enforcement and help identify fraud in government payments.

Those staffers could be in place for months or years to come. Some are temporary — “special government employees,” the same title as Musk, and, like him, limited to working 130 days; or on contracts through September 30, the end of the fiscal year. Others are on renewable one-year agreements. And more have taken titles and roles that are typically considered permanent. “There are so many of Elon’s people in already and they are not leaving, so the chaos will continue and nothing will change,” one General Services Administration employee with knowledge of the agency’s leadership told CNN.

Over the first four months of the Trump administration, DOGE has upended the federal government. At least 121,000 federal workers were laid off or targeted for layoffs in Trump’s first 100 days, and thousands more took buyout offers. Those workers, in interviews with CNN, have described confusion and upheaval, with many forced to return to offices or relocate to keep their jobs. Federal grants and programs have been slashed, and then at times reinstated after court challenges. The Musk-led effort is a hybrid entity with tentacles everywhere, despite legal and political battles over the reach and limits of its authority. Bradley Humphreys, a senior Justice Department trial attorney, told a judge in March that its mission “is somewhat pervasive, and it’s hard for us to clearly define.” (CNN)