*

DOGE's future uncertain without Musk's leadership, says

ex-staffer

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Ex-staffer Lavingia describes unclear objectives at DOGE

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Administration says DOGE work to continue

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DOGE says cost-cutting efforts saved $175 billion, but

figures

are disputed

(Adds administration comments in paragraphs 2, 7, 8, 13)

By Alexandra Ulmer

May 29 (Reuters) - Without billionaire Elon Musk in the

Trump administration, his cost-cutting Department of Government

Efficiency project is likely to sputter out, a former DOGE

staffer said in his first interview since leaving the team.

Tesla CEO Musk announced on Wednesday evening that

he was ending his time as a special government employee but

vowed that DOGE would continue without him. Administration media

representatives also said in statements to Reuters that DOGE

would continue its work.

DOGE has overseen job cuts at nearly every federal agency as

part of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to shake up the

federal bureaucracy.

However, software engineer Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost

two months working for the group of pro-Musk technologists, said

he expects DOGE to quickly "fizzle out."

"It'll just die a whimper," Lavingia, who was fired from

DOGE earlier this month, told Reuters. "So much of the appeal

and allure was Elon." He said he expected DOGE staffers to "just

stop showing up to work. It's like kids joining a startup that

will go out of business in four months."

That would cap a remarkable undoing for DOGE, which Musk

initially vowed would cut $2 trillion in federal spending.

Instead, DOGE estimates its efforts have saved around $175

billion so far and the group's tallies have been riddled with

errors.

The White House praised DOGE but did not comment on

Lavingia.

"DOGE is integral to the federal government's

operations, and its mission, as established by the President's

executive order, will continue under the direction of agency and

department heads in the Trump administration," White House

spokesperson Harrison Fields said.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

Lavingia, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of creator

platform Gumroad, said he was recruited by DOGE through a

personal contact and joined the team in March.

While he said he was proud of certain achievements at the

Department of Veterans Affairs, including modernizing the

agency's internal artificial-intelligence chatbot, he said he

was often at a loss about what work he was expected to do.

"I got dropped into the VA with an HP laptop. What are we

supposed to do? What is the road map?" Lavingia said he asked,

to no avail. "I felt like I was being pranked."

Veterans Affairs press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a

statement to Reuters: "VA looks forward to continuing to work

with its DOGE liaisons to help the department improve its

performance, customer service, and convenience to Veterans."

Lavingia said Steve Davis, the president of Musk's tunneling

enterprise the Boring Company, ran day-to-day operations while

Turkish-born venture capitalist Baris Akis helped with DOGE

recruitment and DOGE logistics.

Davis and Akis did not respond to requests for comment sent

via the White House.

When instructions did come through, they were usually

communicated through phone calls or small chats on the encrypted

Signal messaging app that would typically auto-delete in one

day, Lavingia said.

Lavingia said instructions included moving faster to

increase mass layoffs at the VA, the federal government's

second-largest agency.

The only time he met Musk, Lavingia said, was at an

all-hands meeting in March with what he estimated was between 40

and 60 fellow DOGE staffers.

Lavingia said he asked to open-source, or make freely

available, some of his computer code, which Musk approved.

He then asked if they could livestream DOGE meetings to

increase transparency.

"Elon said: 'That's a great idea. We'll do it next week.' He

then caught himself and said: 'Maybe we pre-record it because of

security risks.'"

Lavingia said he never heard back.

In early May, after he spoke to media outlet Fast Company

about working at DOGE, Lavingia said his computer access was

revoked in what amounted to a firing. He said Musk and team

leaders never explicitly told him he should not talk to

journalists.

"My DOGE days were over," Lavingia wrote in a blog about his

experience.