State versions of DOGE take more modest approaches than Elon Musk's shock-and-awe moves in Washington

States are continuing to roll out their own versions of the Department of Government Efficiency, the outside advisory commission led by tech billionaire Elon Musk that President Donald Trump tasked with cutting federal spending and staffing.

States are continuing to roll out their own versions of the Department of Government Efficiency, the outside advisory commission led by tech billionaire Elon Musk that President Donald Trump tasked with cutting federal spending and staffing.

Many of the officials who launched the bodies, which take different forms in different states, say they’ve wanted to have the impact of Trump’s DOGE, with some explicitly comparing them to the federal commission.

But while Musk’s slash-and-burn approach has caused major disruptions in Washington and across the country, the more than 20 state-level DOGE organizations that have been rolled out since Trump’s federal launch have so far taken a far lighter touch.

For many states with such organizations, that’s a product of the fact that they don't have the same layers of bureaucracy as the federal government, while for others, it’s due more to the fact that their DOGE-styled bodies are advisory in nature. Many of the state DOGE bodies are looking into state governments that have been under unified Republican control for multiple terms or even decades, unlike the federal government.

“It’s more modest,” said Abegail Cave, a spokesperson for Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who in February signed an executive order to create a “Division of Government Efficiency” dubbed DOGE-OK. His office said at the time that it was focused on eliminating wasteful government spending and improving efficiency.