Progressives align with DOGE on defense cuts: ‘Let's play ball’

Billionaire Elon Musk’s new "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) is attracting interest from an unlikely corner: the left.  

Progressives aren't likely to support much of what Musk and his partner, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, are aiming to do with DOGE — cut some $2 trillion from the federal government, which could include critical programs for Americans.  

But Musk has been critical of wasteful spending at the Pentagon and of overbudgeted programs helmed by defense contractors, potentially aligning DOGE with progressive lawmakers who have long called to slash a defense budget that is approaching a trillion dollars a year. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) drew headlines when he said that Musk was “right” about defense spending because the Pentagon has “lost track of billions.” 

“Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change,” Sanders wrote on social platform X. 

Other progressive lawmakers have also backed the opportunity to potentially work with DOGE on the Pentagon budget. 

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a progressive lawmaker who has long pushed to reduce the Pentagon’s budget, said he was unsure if DOGE was a “complete joke” or a “play toy” for Musk.

“Elon Musk is somewhat more of a colorful figure than an expert in government funds,” he said, but “if they actually give them some staffing and put in some responsible efforts and they seek bipartisan input, like I said, I'm more than willing to try to work with them on things, but especially on the defense budget.” 

Progressive policy analysts are also taking the new DOGE commission with a grain of salt, but say they would welcome any real cuts. 

Stephen Semler, nonresident senior fellow at the progressive think tank Center for International Policy, said he was approaching DOGE “with high scrutiny, but with optimism.” 

“If there's common ground, let's play ball,” he said. “But I think there needs to be more dialogue steering Musk and creating a groundswell of public support, encouraging him and DOGE to focus on the Pentagon waste.” 

DOGE will act as an advisory commission under President-elect Trump, who in his first term increased the defense budget. 

But Musk, who poured in a quarter of a billion dollars to support Trump’s campaign, appears to have the ear of the president-elect, at least on some decisions. Whether he’s open to Pentagon budget tightening is an open question. 

Phyllis Bennis, program director at the progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies, said Trump “stands on five sides,” and there is uncertainty as to whether he would support cuts to what she called a Pentagon budget that is “preposterously inflated.” 

“I don't have any sense, and I would certainly not make any predictions about how he would answer a proposal from Elon Musk about cutting the military budget,” she said. “Certainly [Trump] loves big, giant corporations that make a lot of money, and that pretty much describes the military producers.” 

Bennis said she was skeptical of DOGE sparking a real effort to cut the Pentagon's budget, which she said should be focused on operations, like cutting down the 750 military bases the U.S. operates across the globe when Washington’s biggest rival, China, has just four. 

“I'm not so sure that [Musk] is going to be looking at the almost trillion-dollar military spending ... and how it distorts the spending of the entire country,” she said. “If he did, that would be a good thing.” 

Most of the more than $6 trillion federal budget goes to mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare, but defense is the next largest piece of the funding and the bulk of discretionary spending. If Musk wants to make big cuts, he will likely have to target one of those areas. 

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would trim the federal workforce and target federal expenditures “unauthorized” by Congress, such as grants to international organizations or progressive groups. 

They also noted the procurement process and federal contracts that “have gone unexamined for years,” pointing to the Pentagon failing its seventh audit in a row this year, which they said suggested “the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent.” 

But Musk has often been critical of what he sees as wasteful spending at the Pentagon.  

“Our defense budget is pretty gigantic. It's a trillion dollars,” he said at an event last month. “The interest we owe on the debt is now higher than the defense budget. This is not sustainable.” 

And in a post on X, Musk pointed to concerns about the F-35 fighter jet program, which has long faced scrutiny for its high cost, production delays and unreliability. 

On Capitol Hill, some Democrats are seeing the comments as a possible indicator that Musk is serious about defense cuts. 

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement he would welcome “a real effort to cut the bloated, wasteful defense budget that only enriches defense contractors and does not make Americans safer.” 

And Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee, said “defense contractors are ripping off American taxpayers.” 

“We should work with DOGE to rein in waste and fraud, increase competition, and invest in technology that will strengthen our national security,” Khanna said in a statement. 

DOGE is just an advisory group, and even if Trump gave an endorsement for defense cuts, Congress will have to sign off. 

Most of Congress remains supportive of increasing the defense budget, including the incoming chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who has called for a “generational” investment in defense to meet a challenging geopolitical security environment. 

Peter Juul, director of national security at the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, said the defense budget should increase given the dangerous state of the world, even though he agreed the Pentagon could be more efficient. 

“It’s hard to see where you can do that right at this point, unless you're [proposing] a massive personnel cuts,” he said. “You might be able to shave the topline a bit, but it’s not going to be this massive savings.” 

On Capitol Hill, Juul said there is “more appetite” to “keep things where they are or to push them even further,” calling the hope for defense cuts “wishful thinking by progressives.” 

But some Republicans are leaving the door open to defense cuts, including Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a veteran who is leading a new DOGE caucus in the Senate.

"Senator Ernst believes it is time to declare war on wasteful spending throughout the federal government including the Pentagon, which has failed seven straight audits and self-admittedly has $125 billion in unnecessary bureaucratic overhead," the senator’s spokesperson said.

Pocan said there is room on Capitol Hill for persuading some of his colleagues. 

“Let's make people who talk the talk walk the walk. If they really want to reduce spending and have a more efficient and lean government, then why wouldn't you care about something where there's definite, indisputable inefficiency?” 

Musk and Ramaswamy met with Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday to discuss DOGE and potential federal cuts, but the meetings were reportedly light on details.

Besides the F-35 program, progressives have long decried a slate of wasteful Pentagon initiatives like the littoral combat ship, a 22-year-old effort meant to field small warships close to shore. The Navy, which has spent billions on the program only to decommission some ships just years after building them, is now moving away from buying more of the ships. 

The U.S. is also spending more than $1 trillion over several years to modernize its nuclear triad of bomber planes, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles, the last of which has been criticized for growing costs and irrelevancy. 

And defense contractors, which more than half of the defense budget goes to, have long been accused of overcharging the Pentagon for basic services like soap dispensers, which Boeing once overcharged by nearly 8,000 percent.

Gabe Murphy, policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog, said there is a “no shortage” of opportunity for DOGE if it wants to make cuts,  explaining his organization is making a list the commission could use. 

Murphy pointed to excess basing capacity as one area for cuts, noting the Pentagon has said it has 19 percent more staffing at military bases than needed. 

“We are hopeful this can lead to serious and thoughtful and targeted cuts,” Murphy said. “To cut wasteful and inefficient spending practices ultimately strengthens national security, [which] isn't achieved by a certain dollar amount. It's achieved by a sound strategy. And to have a sound strategy [is] by operating in a budget-informed way.”