AFAIK, it has *never* been stated publicly that DOGE or Mr. Musk would get control of this most essential service, responsible for sourcing identity verification, etc.
There's no relationship between bureaucracy efficiency efforts and the digital service. Indeed, one would have expected DOGE to be injected into the Office of Personnel Management.
It's disconcerting to see such a mismatch between rationale and deployment, particularly for a new agency with no oversight in Congress.
The man has been plotting on Signal with a bunch of cronies. Of course, he was never revealing his plans.
But, honestly, this makes perfect sense. USDS is an easy way for them to backdoor their way into the technology environment of the federal government on day 1. He gets a crew of talented people to report to him on day 1 who know the ins and outs as good as anyone in the federal government.
On top of that, after 4 years, they can tout all the successes of DOGE. Hell, they might even claim it saved Healthcare.gov
The Digitial Service was pitched initially as a way for technologists to serve the country. The payscale was peanuts compared to most tech companies. I suspect some of the best will leave if the mission no longer aligns with their values, because they certainly weren’t doing it for the money.