Et tu, DOGE and Elon Musk?

Elon Musk recently stepped down as head of the Department of Government Efficiency—better known as DOGE—in what was an inglorious end to his short tumultuous tenure. He only held the office for roughly four months, but upon taking the reins at the cost-cutting agency, some pundits braced themselves for Musk’s whims.

After all, he once suggested that America needs a modern-day Lucius Cornelius Sulla—the ancient Roman dictator who murdered thousands of people and unilaterally reformed the government. Musk was (hopefully) only implying that we need a leader who can fix our dysfunctional government through sheer force of will. While Musk may have fancied himself a Sulla who can effectively cut through red tape, he proved himself to be more like another, more hapless Roman leader: Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus.

Before assuming DOGE’s chief position, Musk announced his hope to reduce the federal deficit by a whopping $2 trillion. As I wrote a not long ago, kudos to President Donald Trump and Musk for acknowledging the government’s wasteful spending, but without Congress, their endeavors were doomed to failure. Now that failure is coming into focus.

After months of work, DOGE has allegedly cut around $160 billion. This is essentially pocket change to a government that spends nearly $7 trillion a year. What’s more, in the same period that DOGE supposedly saved $160 billion, the federal government spent $200 billion more than it did in the prior year. In short, DOGE has thus far fallen well short of the $2 trillion goal and borders on being an abject failure.

A modern-day Sulla certainly would have fared better, but regardless of your thoughts on Musk and Trump, we thankfully don’t live under a mass-murdering dictator’s rule. Instead of being a paradigm-shifting reformer, like Sulla, Musk seems more like a modern-day Bibulus who had the misfortune of sharing power with Julius Caesar.

In the ancient Roman Republic, two elected executives—known as consuls—led the state, served concurrently and acted as a counter-balance to their colleague. This arrangement was intended to limit their power. In 59 BC, Caesar and Bibulus were elected and had high hopes, but they were diametrically opposed to one another. Caesar was a populist politician, while Bibulus was much more conservative.

They clashed with each other, and some of Caesar’s men even attacked poor Bibulus who found little sympathy and had limited options for derailing Caesar’s policy agenda. “Caesar’s conduct drove him to such a pitch of desperation,” wrote Suetonius, “that from that time until the end of his term he did not leave his house, but merely issued proclamations announcing adverse omens.”

So Bibulus sequestered himself, and each day he probably poked his head out his window and claimed that he saw lightning or some other inauspicious sign. The reason being is that official business could not proceed on a day on which such ill-omens were witnessed.

Bibulus hoped this strategy would counter Caesar but badly misjudged the situation. Caesar had formed a powerful alliance known as the First Triumvirate, and the people clamored for his populist agenda. As such, Caesar plowed ahead without Bibulus who proved to be powerless against him. In fact, Bibulus was simply a cog—perhaps a relatively well-meaning cog—that could not surmount the realities facing him.

In a similar manner, Musk was probably well-intentioned in his efforts to curtail explosive government spending and waste. However, it was too much for Musk and thus far for DOGE. Without Congress’ support, meaningful spending reform will not happen, even though it must, and Musk couldn’t tackle the federal spending machine. Some things are just out of his control.

To return to Caesar briefly, he went on to become dictator, and a number of senators assassinated him. According to Shakespeare’s play—“The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”—when Caesar shockingly saw Marcus Junius Brutus—a younger man he knew well—among the conspirators, he said, “Et tu, Brute?” which roughly translates to “You too, Brutus?” In reality, Caesar’s last words to Brutus were “You too, my child?” according to Suetonius, but never mind that.

In the end, DOGE turned out to just be another government program that failed to live up to expectations as some of us predicted, but its inability to effectively alter the government’s trajectory has surely left others dismayed. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Et tu, DOGE and Elon Musk?”