Elon Musk to Head 'Department of Government Efficiency,' or DOGE, in New Trump Administration

Donald Trump’s election to a second term in the White House may have lifted Bitcoin almost 10% over the last 24 hours.

Donald Trump’s election to a second term in the White House may have had an unexpected impact on the cryptocurrency market.

While Bitcoin is up almost 10% in the last 24 hours, Dogecoin is also rallying. At one point in the last day, the meme token had gained as much as 16%, and it is now up 8%, according to CoinGecko.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has long touted Dogecoin as “the people’s crypto,” and now he is set to head the cheekily-named Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in the new Trump administration.

A government commission announced by Trump a couple of months ago, DOGE will conduct a comprehensive financial and performance audit of the federal government, reminiscent of the Grace Commission initiated by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

However, it’s worth noting that Trump has never referred to it as DOGE. The moniker is Musk’s playful twist.

Launched in 2013 as a lighthearted jest on cryptocurrency mania, Dogecoin has evolved into a major cryptocurrency. Its association with Musk became pronounced in 2021, and since then, he has often been seen as a driving force behind its popularity.

“My Dogecoin went up when you tweeted. You’re amazing, how do you do it? The power — the power of Elon Musk!,” exclaimed one Dogecoin investor as Musk was surrounded by reporters and enthusiastic fans in February 2021, during the early days of the last crypto bull market.

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In May 2021, Musk even named one of his SpaceX rockets “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon,” a mission funded entirely by Dogecoin. The rocket was initially scheduled to launch in 2022, then in 2024, but was again delayed due to technical troubles.

Over time, Musk's influence on the Dogecoin price has waned. As the value of Dogecoin plummeted from its all-time high of $0.73 to under $0.20, so did the patience of retail investors. In 2022, a group of Dogecoin investors filed a lawsuit seeking $258 billion in damages from Musk, alleging he engaged in a pump-and-dump scheme.

But in August, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan dismissed the case, asserting that Musk’s statements were merely “aspirational and puffery.”

“It is not possible to understand the allegations that form the basis of Plaintiffs’ conclusion of market manipulation,” the judge noted.

Now, Musk's growing influence within the Trump administration may bring renewed optimism for Dogecoin investors and traders, especially as overall sentiment in the market begins to pick up.

Musk’s engagement with Dogecoin extends beyond public endorsements. He actively collaborated with its developers as early as 2019.

That year, Dogecoin developer Ross Nicoll told Decrypt that Musk reached out to the developers, providing “lots of advice and input” on technical aspects and sharing his personal contacts with a team of four part-time Dogecoin developers.

Musk made his collaboration with Doge public only in 2021 when he wrote on X that he was “[w]orking with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency.”

Musk also offered financial support to Dogecoin’s core team, but the developers declined his funding to maintain independence, according to Decrypt’s reporting at the time.

Dogecoin has attracted an unusual alliance of high-profile supporters. Billionaire Mark Cuban, a vocal Trump critic and one-time majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, began accepting Dogecoin as payment for tickets to games in March 2021. He described it as a “fun” and accessible entry point for new investors in crypto.

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin joined the Dogecoin Foundation’s advisory board in August 2021, alongside Musk, when the foundation reestablished itself after a six-year hiatus.

Buterin had long proposed that Dogecoin shift toward a proof-of-stake model — similar to Ethereum’s significant upgrade away from energy-intensive mining called proof-of-work. His involvement was taken to mean that now the developers could explore that option.

But Dogecoin developer Michi Lumin clarified in December 2022 that there were no plans to implement a PoS transition. Lumin did not immediately respond to DL News’ request for comments.

Ekin Genç is DL News’ managing editor. Have a tip? Contact the author at ekin@dlnews.com.

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