"Are you only realizing who they are now?"
TL;DR: It was stupid on its face but its an intractable problem too - no sane person is going to address it - maybe its worth a shot?
Fair question and a well thought out ask - I suppose given the gravity of the current US fiscal situation I was ready to entertain an unconventional solution if for no other reason than it might draw real attention to the issue. Given the absolutely wild spending of the past 4 years (and before too of course) I was ready to consider things I'd never have given a second look before. Its the classic Hail Mary shot in basketball. Its not a good shot and at no other point in the game would it be a shot worth taking but you got the ball and theres 1 second on the clock - use it or lose it.
Given their limited and unofficial scope, my idea at least, was that they couldn't do any real damage. Congress alone spends the money and that isn't going to change. Some high profile people shining some sunlight on government spending abuses should only be a good thing. If they happen to do a good job then great, and if they're whacko they're not directly in charge of anything and theres still plenty of backstop keeping them from getting too far.
Now here we are 21 days from a new administration AND THEY'RE ALREADY OFF IN THE WEEDS! They were only tenuously entertained as reasonable in the first place and now here they are pretending they have some standing in the greater, national, policy conversation. To be clear they do not.
I never had any delusion that Elon was suddenly going to start saying rational, measured and accurate things. VR is just a guy trying to buy his way into the game and in my opinion not to be taken too seriously anyhow as a sidekick. BUT if you want to cut costs, make the seemingly impossible thing happen, change how the government actually provides services and spends money to do it - there are worse guys out there than Elon to make it happen. $2T in cuts was insane for sure and it was dumb to even say, not to mention it speaks poorly that someone even thought it was worth saying but such is typical out of him.
Warts and all - if there was one person who could make an improvement it was Elon Musk - and if not well at least we tried. He's in a sandbox for the most part and has no more authority than the administration allows. Even if Trump is seduced/enamored by the pair of them theres still a government in place.
At this very early point, before the war even starts in earnest, Im already looking at the rollback plan and cancelling the DOGE release.
EDIT: If nothing else DOGE was to be a patsy organization - we NEED SPENDING CUTS and nobody wants their sacred cow slaughtered. Its not going to be a popular job. It was my thinking that a "separate agency" might provide some cover in the form of Someone To Blame, thus making the conversation about cutting spending possible at all.