The Democrats who aren’t writing off Elon Musk’s DOGE

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna have both identified wasteful military spending as an area of potential cooperation with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

As Republicans rush to embrace Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency, most Democrats have taken a dismissive, even adversarial approach to the new initiative.

“Musk is a narcissist, a grifter, and a self-serving plutocrat,” said Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas. “I don’t have my hopes up that Elon Musk is going to do anything other than really awful, stupid, self-serving stuff.”

It’s not hard to see why. Ramaswamy was one of the more right-wing 2024 GOP presidential candidates, while Musk — who just spent an immense sum of his own money to get Donald Trump elected — has emerged in recent years as a Democratic bogeyman. And while the contours of DOGE’s agenda remain vague, there are already signs that progressive priorities could fall victim to Musk and Ramaswamy’s proposals for deep spending cuts.

Yet a handful of Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness to engage, eyeing DOGE as an unlikely opportunity to push their own long-standing policy goals.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, see tackling wasteful military spending as a potential point of common cause with DOGE.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida on Tuesday became the first Democrat to join the House’s DOGE caucus. He told B-17 that his “singular focus” would be restructuring the Department of Homeland Security by making the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service report directly to the president.

“If this is where that conversation is going to happen, I’m happy to be at the table,” Moskowitz said. “And if they want to do stupid stuff, I’ll call it out and I’ll vote against it.”

The three lawmakers’ DOGE-curious posturing also offers an early look at how some Democrats, fresh off of a defeat in the 2024 election, plan to cautiously engage with a Trump administration that’s set to pursue a more radical transformation of the country than the first time around.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz is joining the DOGE caucus — but he has no interest in serving on the DOGE subcommittee.

Khanna, a Silicon Valley-based progressive who remains cordial with Musk, appears to be taking the billionaire businessman seriously when he says he wants to examine the Pentagon’s budget, citing Musk’s past criticism of bloated defense contracts. The congressman has also suggested that Democrats have unduly alienated Musk in recent years.

“If Musk is going to help bring accountability to defense contractors, that’s something that Democrats should welcome,” Khanna said.

But other progressives who want military spending cuts are much more suspicious.

“I highly doubt that one of the largest defense contractors in the United States — and by that I mean Elon Musk — is going to opt for the federal government to cut the money that he is receiving directly from them,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. “He relies on the federal government to give him money.”

Sanders, who argued on X that Musk “is right” about bloated military spending, may be using the unexpected synergy to highlight an issue he’s long cared about. The Vermont senator told B-17 that he hadn’t directly engaged with Musk and that it remains to be seen how seriously the SpaceX founder should be taken on the issue.

“I would hope that he is serious,” Sanders said. “If you want to save taxpayer dollars, you do it not by cutting programs for hungry children but by getting rid of the waste and fraud in the military.”

Despite these small areas of potential agreement, much of what Musk and Ramaswamy have floated so far is likely to be anathema to the average Democratic lawmaker. There’s a reason that Republicans and not Democrats are set to meet with the duo at the Capitol on Thursday.

Last week, Musk said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established by President Barack Obama that regulates financial services, should be eliminated. And Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said Musk and Ramaswamy wanted to “defund Planned Parenthood,” as the duo described the organization as a recipient of “federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended.”

That’s not deterring lawmakers like Khanna and Moskowitz just yet.

“Obviously, if they’re targeting areas that are going to lead to less education funding or less consumer protection, we need to speak up passionately, vociferously, and oppose it,” Khanna said. “But our opposition will be much more effective and reasonable if we’re willing to work with them on areas where there is government fraud and abuse.”

“Some of these recommendations, I’m sure, will be horrible,” Moskowitz said. “But a broken clock is right twice a day, so if there are things that they find that we can improve, shouldn’t we give it a chance?”

But while Khanna could end up serving on a new DOGE subcommittee set to be chaired by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Moskowitz says he’s steering clear.

“I’m not interested in doing anything Marjorie Taylor Greene touches,” Moskowitz said. “She’s not a serious member.”