Elon Musk’s DOGE Exploring Blockchain for Government Efficiency
The Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, is reportedly considering the use of a public blockchain to bring transparency and other potential benefits to government operations and spending.
That’s according to Bloomberg, which reported Saturday that Musk’s DOGE agency is holding conversations with representatives from multiple existing public blockchains, according to sources close to the conversations.
No specific chains are mentioned in the report, though Bloomberg reports that DOGE is keen on using a blockchain—an immutable, public ledger—to monitor government spending and handle payments, handle data, and perhaps even “manage buildings” under the U.S. government’s purview.
DOGE—which appears to share its acronym with the ticker of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin—was discussed on President Donald Trump’s campaign trail and then made official following his November election win. Musk was supposed to co-run the effort with Vivek Ramaswamy, but the latter billionaire and Bitcoin fan departed this week for an apparent run at Ohio governor.
Musk has said that DOGE aims to cut $2 trillion from the federal government via a combination of budget cuts and layoffs, though he has since backtracked and said that $1 trillion is more likely.
This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a letter to Musk that DOGE appears to be a “venue for corruption,” and suggested $2 trillion worth of spending cuts that wouldn’t impact essential programs or raise taxes for middle-class Americans.
Musk is an avowed fan of Dogecoin, while Trump has launched NFTs across Ethereum scaling network Polygon as well as Bitcoin, and debuted his official meme coin on Solana last week. However, there’s no word yet on which chain or chains might be used in the potential DOGE blockchain initiative.
