Wired’s Drummond explains its DOGE strategy

Wired global editorial director Katie Drummond writes about its strategy of covering how the Department of Government Efficiency is examining federal cuts.

Drummond writes, “We’ve been sourcing up, talking to people within and around federal agencies, as well as experts in disciplines including cybersecurity, AI, medicine, and more, about Musk’s potential impact.

“What would Musk do, we wanted to understand, once Trump took back the White House on January 20? How would our government—and our country —change with Trump at the steering wheel and Musk riding shotgun?

“Now the world, and WIRED, are finding out. The entire WIRED newsroom, from editors and reporters to fact-checkers and photo editors, has been working relentlessly to unearth new information about what exactly Elon Musk and his allies are doing across federal agencies, and to what end. What is changing, how, and what are the consequences? Amid the findings of our reporting, one overarching fact has become extremely clear: Musk is now in the driver’s seat, and he is implementing sweeping, shocking, and largely unchecked changes across the entirety of our country’s federal apparatus.

“So what do we know so far? WIRED has in recent days revealed that Elon Musk has taken over swaths of government infrastructure, from installing his lackeys in senior positions within governmental HR to leading the charge on a chaotic “deferred resignation program”—one that closely echoes a similar Musk initiative at Twitter—that could see millions of federal workers leave their posts. Musk has been instrumental in attempting to dismantle USAID, with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cutting off funding for lifesaving work before the State Department put the majority of USAID personnel on administrative leave.”

Read more here.