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They're in too deep to admit how badly they obviously fucked up. Shit is gonna have to actually reach the ugly bitter end, leaving them no other possible explanation to try to hide behind. In the meantime, this must be what it felt like for the citizens of Rome as it burned.

This isn’t even what the most diehard conservatives out there voted for

When this happens in a developing country we laugh at their politics.

When it happens in America, no one bats an eye

It’s stressing me out to no end. I think the average person doesn’t even know this is currently happening.

L-m-a-o roflmao even

Or Boeing. Boeing certainly seems to not have an issue with taking care of people who are causing them problems.

And for people who don't like that word:

Regulatory capture of the entire United States government.

Raytheon would like to know your latitude and longitude

Unfortunately, when all this stuff is resolved, it's still the government that's on the hook, not Musk personally. Although the new admin should probably just impound all of his and Trump's assets to pay for the fallout, but obviously Democrats would never do anything this based.

It's almost like they're not being fiscally responsible conservatives or something...

“DOGE” isn’t even a real Department, right?

Technically, Trump just renamed the United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service, then created a child agency within it called the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization reporting directly to the President (which USDS does technically anyways) and hired Musk as a special government employee as head of that. A special government employee is essentially expected to work less than 130 days in the next year and are normally used to fill short term needs, or as expert topic consultants for specific projects, that sort of thing.

USDS is normally basically IT consultancy for other US departments, which is why he has access to a shocking number of keys to the kingdom, as it were.

And also, Musk hasn’t been elected or officially confirmed for any government position.

You don't have to be confirmed by the Senate for most government jobs (just a specific named handful of high ranking positions, like the Secretaries of various Cabinet Departments), and he was basically given the highest possible position he could without needing to be confirmed by the Senate.

Why the fuck is he giving orders and leading departments and having any power whatsoever over the U.S. Treasury and such? I don’t understand how this works.

The President has final authority and power over the executive branch and over time increasing power has been placed in the executive branch largely because Congress didn't want to fight over things every couple of years and the relative stability of a secondary agency staffed with experts was desirable for things like licensing radio bandwidth. USDS isn't one of these agencies though - it was created by Obama in 2014 to help manage US IT stuff (and basically started from the team that fixed the healthcare.gov site in 2013) and didn't need to be authorized by Congress because it doesn't have rulemaking power over anything outside the executive branch and thus doesn't require Congress to delegate power to it.

As for why he's giving orders and leading departments, legally he probably shouldn't be but he's also been assigned that power by Trump in a way that's questionably legal. There are at least 3 lawsuits that have been filed arguing that it's technically an advisory committee and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. I could totally see a federal judge agreeing with that, but it would eventually go to SCOTUS and we know who's dick they sucked to get there.

TL;DR: DOGE exists because it's an existing department (US Digital Service) renamed DOGE, Musk was hired under that department in basically the highest spot that wouldn't require Senate confirmation and because that department is essentially cross-departmental IT consultancy it gives him access to a shocking amount of federal IT resources. He isn't being stopped because everyone involved ultimately reports to Trump and Trump has told him to do it. There are at least three lawsuits filed claiming the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization is in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, but since it's only existed for like 10 days the courts haven't really had a chance to even hear arguments about it yet.

Lawsuit submitted

Lower court determines whether to stay the action while case is handled

Changes are unrecoverable since department can't pay staff managing the payments

Law enforcement given warrant to force stay

Law enforcement chooses not to enforce because they have no motivation

Payments never restored

Case goes to supreme court

Law interpreted in favor of the administration because clearly no means yes, it's obvious

Congress doesn't respond due to right wing majority

Checks and balances are dead.

It's still stupid and ridiculous and it still doesn't have any legal authority.

Unfortunately, it is being allowed to act without legal authority.