When Elon Musk walked away from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in late May 2025, the headlines focused on the billionaire's public spat with the Trump administration over a massive spending bill. But the real structural collapse happened 24 hours later. That was when Steve Davis, the man actually running the gears of the operation, called it quits.
Most people didn't even know his name. They should have.
Steve Davis wasn't just another advisor; he was the operational hammer. If Musk was the visionary architect of the "Manhattan Project" for government spending, Davis was the foreman on the ground with the clipboard and the pink slips. His exit didn't just signal a change in leadership. It effectively signaled the end of the aggressive, Silicon Valley-style "hardcore" culture that had briefly paralyzed Washington D.C.
The Steve Davis DOGE Departure: Why the "Enforcer" Left
The Steve Davis DOGE departure was a direct domino effect of Musk's own exit. For over twenty years, Davis has been the ultimate "fixer" for Musk’s empire. He was the 14th employee at SpaceX. He’s the president of The Boring Company. When Twitter needed to be gutted to the bone in 2022, Davis was the one sleeping in the office with a newborn baby, reviewing every single line of the budget.
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He brought that same "burn the boats" energy to the federal government.
At DOGE, Davis held more raw power than the official administrator, Amy Gleason. He was the one who spearheaded the infamous "Fork in the Road" email that went out to thousands of federal employees, basically telling them to resign or get ready for the axe. He didn't care about the optics. He didn't care about the politics. He cared about the math.
So, why leave? Honestly, it came down to a lack of political air cover.
Musk’s frustration with the "bureaucratic obstacles" in Washington wasn't just a tweet; it was a reality that Davis felt every hour. When Musk publicly broke with Trump over the 2025 spending bill—calling it a "disgusting abomination"—the political shield protecting Davis’s aggressive tactics vanished. You can't fire 200,000 people if the President and Congress aren't backing you up anymore.
What Davis Left Behind in the Wreckage
When Davis walked out the door on May 29, 2025, he left a vacuum that Russ Vought and other "institutional" figures tried to fill, but the vibe shifted instantly. The "tech bro" era of DOGE was over.
During his tenure, Davis had attempted some wild technical feats that horizontal bureaucrats found terrifying. One of the biggest? Trying to migrate 60 million lines of the Social Security Administration’s COBOL code in just a few months. Experts called it a suicide mission. Davis called it Tuesday. He had also pushed for direct access to sensitive federal databases to investigate what he called the "general myth" of widespread fraud.
This wasn't just about saving money; it was a fundamental clash of cultures.
- The Davis Method: High speed, zero regard for existing rules, and a "chemotherapy" approach to cutting costs (a term Musk literally used to describe him).
- The DC Reality: Endless committee meetings, legal roadblocks, and the 130-day limit on special government employees.
By the time the Steve Davis DOGE departure was confirmed by the White House, the agency was already bleeding staff. Other key "Musk-ites" like Edward Coristine—the 19-year-old engineer known online as "Big Balls"—followed suit shortly after.
The Aftermath: From $2 Trillion to $175 Billion
Before Davis left, DOGE claimed it had saved taxpayers roughly $175 billion. It’s a huge number, sure, but it was a far cry from the $2 trillion Musk had originally promised at Madison Square Garden. Critics, of course, have been tearing those numbers apart ever since, arguing that the "savings" were mostly unspent funds or accounting tricks rather than actual structural changes.
Since the departure, the department has largely faded. It was officially disbanded months ahead of its July 2026 "self-deletion" date. Without the Davis-led "landing team" to enforce the cuts, many agencies simply reverted to business as usual.
Actionable Insights for the Post-DOGE Era
If you're looking at this as a case study in management or politics, there are a few hard truths to take away from how Davis operated:
- Efficiency requires authority: You can’t disrupt a system from the outside if you don’t have a permanent, legal mandate. Davis was a "de facto" leader, and that ambiguity eventually killed his momentum.
- Institutional knowledge is a real wall: Trying to rewrite decades-old government code with a handful of Silicon Valley engineers works in a startup, but it can trigger a systemic collapse in a government setting.
- The "Fixer" needs a "Frontman": Davis was incredibly effective as long as Musk had Trump's ear. The second that relationship soured, Davis became a liability rather than an asset.
For those still following the fallout, the focus has shifted to the Boring Company and SpaceX, where Davis has returned to his full-time roles. He’s back in the private sector where "we don't have to follow the rules" is a lot easier to pull off than it is in the West Wing.
Monitor the ongoing GAO reports and the 2026 midterm budget audits. These documents will eventually reveal the true "net" impact of Davis’s short, chaotic stint in Washington. If you are a federal contractor or work in public policy, keep a close watch on the U.S. Digital Service, which has absorbed some of the remaining DOGE functions—though with significantly less "chemotherapy" involved.