Absolutely everyone can get behind a more efficient government with less corruption (the idea of a business man cutting corruption is nuts).
The execution however, as is often the case, was awful (leave it up to the individual to decide if that was deliberate or not).
The point was never to "save money" for the United States. They might as well have said the point was to save puppies -- it's just a framing they adopted so people would say "I agree with it in spirit". Instead of focusing on and pointing out the corrupt intent, you say you actually agree with their intent. Diabolical really.
Come to think of it, they did it with immigration to. DOGE was going to get rid of waste fraud and abuse. ICE was going to get rid of rapists, murderers, and drug dealers. Who can disagree wit that goal? You don't support MURDER do you?!
But just as DOGE didn't live up to their promise, ICE went after landscapers, builders, and farmers and people are surprised Pikachu over it. "But I thought he said just the violent criminals..."
So no, the idea was very very bad.
The "idea" that was executed on here was a non-starter to begin with. You don't get anywhere by lighting everything that seems like waste on fire and burning it to the ground, learning its effects later. A modern government is not something that is riddled with waste so much that it does nothing. Their first target, USAID, as far as I could tell had no idea what was coming. They didn't even seem to bother to look into what they did, just the cashflows. Which of course will seem wasteful if you don't have a human heart with feelings, it's called U-S-A-I-D. Saying the idea was good here is like giving them the benefit of the doubt that sure maybe they can't read or understand anything, but let them axe these things without a second thought? Come on, you shouldn't let Elon off that easy.
The idea was trash, too.
The idea wasn't actually make "a more efficient government with less corruption," it was "let Elon Musk and a bunch lackeys literally just move fast and break things."