The Verge [no [paywall] –  “2025 was the year the federal government and consumer protections were gutted…There was the record 43-day government shutdown that threatened food access for millions of low-income Americans, threw air travel into chaos, halted space launches, and delayed consumer products that needed regulatory approval. There was Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr’s naked threat to pull broadcast licenses over airing late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel after he made a joke he found distasteful. There were the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on workplaces like Home Depot and the amped up deportation efforts that pulled law enforcement resources from areas like child exploitation investigations. And then there was the biggest full-on rupture to the government in 2025: Elon Musk’s pet project, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Shall we list the ways DOGE took a sledgehammer to the federal government? Hundreds of thousands of federal workers had their jobs cut or left as the Trump administration eagerly pushed them out; it shuttered the group once considered to be the country’s greatest source of soft power, which delivered food and medicine to impoverished countries; it accessed a system containing millions of Americans’ most sensitive financial information, while all but dismantling a financial consumer protection watchdog; it pushed out tech talent across several agencies; saved taxpayers far less money than promised while decimating institutional knowledge; and cut medical research funding perceived as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. After all that, Musk has deemed the project only “somewhat successful” and said he probably wouldn’t do it again…”