The world’s richest man arrived in Washington with a mission to reduce wasteful government spending. Many of us applauded the effort; however, we also noted that he couldn’t do it alone.
“There is only one way to permanently establish and reinforce the necessary limitations on taxation, and that is by giving the states the opportunity to debate and propose amendments that will do so at a limited-purpose Article V convention,” Matthew May wrote in a blog about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
We weren’t being pessimistic. We were simply reciting the caution of wiser men, including Ronald Reagan, who warned, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear.” Musk could rip off the band-aid and force the American people to face the government’s reckless waste of their taxes. But fighting to bring internal reform to Washington was always an uphill battle.
Now, less than five months later, Musk has revealed that he is leaving D.C., disillusioned, not with the Trump administration, per se, but with the federal government’s stubborn immunity to change. As the Babylon Bee quipped in a satirical(?) headline: “Elon Musk Leaves Job Of Making Government More Efficient For Much Easier Job Of Sending Humans To Mars.”
“Though Mars ... is a barren wasteland with unbreathable air and a surface completely devoid of liquid water, experts agreed that dramatically altering the atmosphere and topography of Mars with technology that doesn’t exist yet sounded much easier than permanently cutting government spending,” the article joked.
Although Musk remains hopeful that DOGE’s mission “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he nevertheless appears discouraged, “frustrated,” according to The New York Times, “with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy.” And while the SpaceX founder vowed to “remain a friend and an advisor” to the project during a farewell press conference on Friday, we can understand his frustration. Why break one’s back to expose wasteful spending if Congress refuses to make any cuts?
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk claimed in an interview about Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which experts predict could add $3.8 trillion to the national deficit by 2034.
“I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful,” he added, “but I don’t know if it can be both.”
In other interviews, the usually energetic Musk sounded dejected about his political future and complained that DOGE had become D.C.’s “whipping boy for everything.”
🚨 RINO Republicans not codifying @DOGE cuts and doing everything @elonmusk suggested will go down in history as one of the all-time biggest political mistakes in U.S. history.
— Publius (@OcrazioCornPop) May 20, 2025
Republican voters were more excited about DOGE's work than anything else by far.
Not to even mention… pic.twitter.com/6sgPjtKx71
None of this diminishes the importance of his work. It simply means he ran into a brick wall, which is what the Founders predicted would happen — without an Article V convention.
“Old habits die hard,” they say. That certainly must be true of habits involving the unrestricted use of other people’s money.
What happened to Musk is a classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tale — a wide-eyed idealist arrives at the nation’s capital with big dreams, only to discover it isn’t interested in his disruptive ambitions. His aims weren’t wrong. It was about time someone started talking about fiscal responsibility and limited government again. But was the nearly seven-trillion-dollar-per-year spending machine known as the federal government about to put itself on a diet? Yeah, right.
That’s why internal reform efforts always fall short: they require “insiders” to sign on. And as anyone who’s been paying attention to Congress’s ruckus about DOGE knows, they have not.
Musk shouldn’t give up, though. He should take heart from another lonely crusader who felt out of place in Washington: the late Senator Tom Coburn. In many ways, Dr. Coburn paved the way for DOGE. And yet, even he eventually quit the federal government, disenchanted with Washington’s irresponsible deficit spending. But he didn’t give up. Instead, he redirected his time and energy to an external reform project: Convention of States.
Take it from Coburn himself.
Musk’s time in Washington — like Coburn’s — was bound to end in disappointment. No doubt, he made much-needed progress and opened our eyes to many shocking examples of waste, but DOGE has still only scratched the surface. Fortunately, Article V empowers “We the People” to finish the job.
Sign the open letter to Elon Musk here to encourage the DOGE head and let him know about the nationwide grassroots movement “to reduce the size and scope of the federal government — permanently.” His contributions to a more limited and responsible government have been too valuable to let go to waste; we must call an Article V convention and cement those changes now!
