Six months after its dramatic rollout, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) lost its most famous face. Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul once touted as the figurehead for the Trump administration's bureaucracy-busting blitz, stepped away from DOGE after his short-term role expired. His exit, coupled with a recent falling out (and perhaps reconciliation) between him and President Donald Trump, has left DOGE without clear leadership and uncertain about its direction.

Since its inception via executive order at the beginning of President Trump's second term, progressives saw DOGE as the harbinger of a coming techno-fascistic regime, and conservatives saw it as a long-overdue budget-slashing barbecue. Meanwhile, seasoned libertarians with longer memories of Washington's long history of chewing up cost-cutting task forces with catchy acronyms saw it as nothing more than the latest chapter in a long history of failed government reform efforts.

For all its talk of shrinking government, DOGE has behaved exactly like the agencies it seeks to dismantle: unaccountable and overreaching. DOGE may have been touted as a budget hawk's dream, but it's looking more like a Trojan horse for executive overreach that should alarm anyone truly committed to limited government.