Elon, Vivek, and the Department of Government Efficiency want to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. A libertarian says the only way to do that is to eliminate aid programs altogether. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Kim Eggleston, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members A photo illustration of Elon Musk's X account and a Dogecoin cryptocurrency. Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Elon Musk is a funny guy. You can tell because his favorite cryptocurrency is based on a cute dog, a Shiba Inu, which inspired the Doge meme, which inspired Dogecoin. I'm sorry if I'm losing you. The point is, it's Elon's fave. In 2021, he hosted Saturday Night Live and plugged it over and over.
And lately, prices have been soaring for cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, especially Dogecoin.
Oh!
He also said he would fund a moon mission entirely with Dogecoin and incessantly tweeted about the crypto. And for a minute, Tesla was accepting Dogecoin. In 2022, investors got tired of the antics and sued Elon Musk for manipulating the price of the coin. They lost, Elon won, and then Kamala lost.
So Elon won again, and now our future president has rewarded Musk's loyalty with an entire government agency named for his favorite meme coin. And as you've probably heard, it's called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, on Today Explained.
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The first thing you need to know about the Department of Government Efficiency is that Trump's put two people in charge of it, so it's off to a great start. Elon is one of them. The other is Vivek Ramaswamy. No relation. We asked Vox's Dylan Matthews to help us understand what they intend to do, but first we asked him where he stands on the federal government.
Any sufficiently large organization is going to have inefficiencies, and there are definitely inefficiencies in federal spending. But almost everything that the federal government spends money on is pretty non-controversial, which is why we keep spending money on it.
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