‘It is a wrecking ball’: Former DOGE worker describes Musk-led government-slashing effort from the inside

Elon Musk has claimed the Department of Government Efficiency is “the most transparent organization in government ever.” But Merici Vinton, a federal worker who recently left her job at the government information technology office weeks after it was taken over by DOGE, told CNN in an interview she witnessed a “highly secretive” effort operating by “a different set of rules.”

Elon Musk has claimed the Department of Government Efficiency is “the most transparent organization in government ever.” But Merici Vinton, a federal worker who recently left her job at the government information technology office weeks after it was taken over by DOGE, told CNN in an interview she witnessed a “highly secretive” effort operating by “a different set of rules.” She described a wave of new staffers with limited knowledge of how federal agencies operate taking a bulldozer-like approach to shrinking the government — moves made with “a careless disregard for trying to understand how the work happens and what the rules and policies are.” “A lot of government culture, love it or not, is about collaboration and consensus-building. That has not been the DOGE approach,” Vinton said. “They kind of do things their own way.” In her first network interview since stepping down, Vinton offered an inside perspective on the events that unfolded at the US Digital Service. She watched as it turned into the staging ground for the administration’s push to drastically slash spending, reduce the federal workforce and remake the government around Trump’s priorities. The DOGE effort — which has led to massive layoffs, canceled contracts and at times wildly inaccurate claims about federal spending — has played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion of Trump’s second term. Vinton, 44, started in 2021 at USDS, the executive branch office created under President Barack Obama to improve technology across the federal government. She worked on the temporary expansion of the child tax credit and was one of the architects of Direct File, which allows many Americans to file their taxes directly with the Internal Revenue Service. Vinton said she joined USDS to support rebuilding efforts after the Covid-19 pandemic.