Elon Musk leaves farewell message to DOGE, Trump

In this video, Nick Shirley discusses Elon Musk’s announcement that his time as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has ended. According to Nick Shirley, Musk released a statement thanking President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending, and noted that DOGE’s work would continue to strengthen as cost-cutting becomes embedded throughout federal agencies.

Nick Shirley reports that during Musk’s tenure, DOGE allegedly identified and targeted over $175 billion in government spending reductions. According to the video, when calculated per taxpayer, this amounts to over $1,000 per person. Nick Shirley then walks through several specific examples of spending that Musk’s team allegedly uncovered, asking where this money was going in the first place.

Among the items Shirley highlights from Musk’s findings: millions spent maintaining an underground limestone mine—operational since 1955—allegedly used to store federal retirement paperwork that is processed manually. Nick Shirley notes that according to Musk, retirement paperwork is manually calculated and written on paper before being stored in this facility.

Nick Shirley also catalogs additional spending examples that Musk’s team allegedly identified, including $520 million for environmental, social, and governance investments in Africa; $25 million for biodiversity conservation in Colombia; $10 million for voluntary male circumcisions in Mozambique; $21 million for voter turnout initiatives in India; and $20 million for fiscal federalism efforts in Nepal. Nick Shirley emphasizes that pages of similar line items exist.

According to Nick Shirley, Musk also allegedly uncovered that $4.7 trillion in Treasury payments were untraceable due to a lack of line-item requirements—a finding Shirley characterizes as having major downstream effects on government accountability.

Nick Shirley contextualizes Musk’s departure by noting that the richest person in the world voluntarily took on what Shirley describes as an unpopular and difficult task while managing multiple major businesses. He expresses concern about whether Congress and the President will act on DOGE’s findings by either returning savings to taxpayers or cutting the programs Musk identified. Nick Shirley suggests that Musk’s legacy depends on whether Congress codifies spending reforms through legislative action, particularly through a rescission package from the White House focusing on discretionary spending.

In Nick Shirley’s Own Words

“All the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated, then written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down a mine.”

“Elon Musk would be heralded as an unselfish hero who left very successful businesses to go into government to do a thankless job of cutting all of this spending.”

“He showed us the degree to which legislators on Capitol Hill have absolutely no respect for taxpayer dollars.”