Current and former staffers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are increasingly alarmed that the aggressive cuts they carried out — dismantling federal programs and wiping out jobs — could now circle back and expose them to potential criminal cases.
Adding to their anxiety is a deepening fear that billionaire Elon Musk, the man who brought many of them into Washington, won’t come to their rescue by asking Donald Trump to intervene if their situation deteriorates.
According to reporting from Politico’s Sophia Cai and Daniel Lippmanis, several DOGE “tech bros” packed their bags in June and moved out of the sixth floor of the General Services Administration (GSA) building — the space where they had literally been living — to seek new housing.
That shift happened right after Musk and Trump split apart in bitter fashion, exchanging public jabs and accusations, and keeping their distance from one another ever since, aside from the occasional potshot on social media.
While DOGE workers have long dealt with the constant risk of backlash — everything from negative press to furious Cabinet members to the idea that someone might try to pin criminal liability on them — the sense of dread has grown now that Musk appears unlikely to defend them if investigations heat up.
“Musk had not been just their visionary leader. For them, he was their protector: the man who had a direct line to Trump, who they believed could pick up the phone and secure a presidential pardon if the worst came. Without his presence in Washington, they were suddenly exposed,” Politico reports. At a recent gathering, “a senior DOGE figure named Donald Park tried to reassure his colleagues that they were still ‘brothers in arms’ and that Musk would continue to protect them.” That comment sparked a pushback from another staffer warning, “Guys, seriously get your own lawyer if you need it. Elon’s great, but you need to watch your own back.”
Uncertainty about DOGE’s long-term future and the fate of its employees escalated immediately after the Musk–Trump fallout, especially for a department that had always been seen as a volatile experiment, made even more unstable by Musk’s clashes with other Trump administration figures — including a reported physical “scuffle” with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
After Musk exited the scene, cracks within DOGE grew wider as internal fights broke out and several members departed, saying “they were quitting out of exhaustion, drained by the drama at the top and disillusioned by the collapse of the political cover that once made their work possible.”
