‘Shock the system’: Startups and DOGE take over Reagan forum

SIMI VALLEY, California—“Efficiency” was the word of the weekend at the Reagan National Defense Forum here. Defense-startup executives were giddy at the prospect of gaining comparative advantage through Trump-administration attacks on Pentagon bureaucracy, while lawmakers cautioned that substantive changes would require their review.

Defense tech firms like Palantir and Anduril believe the Department of Government Efficiency, a project led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, could make it easier for newcomers to prise defense contracts away from established prime contractors. 

Software company Palantir was the top sponsor of Reagan, a conference where venture-backed sponsors were scarce just a few years ago. 

Start-ups are hoping for a "revolution" where “we do hold the bureaucracy accountable, where we shock the bureaucracy and force it to do some of these things,” said Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and venture capitalist. Musk was hailed as the best person to do this by Palantir CEO Alex Karp: “I don’t know how you do better than Elon looking at these things,” he said at Reagan, citing Musk’s companies as models of efficiency. (Others have noted that government is not business, and that many Pentagon requirements exist for deadly serious reasons that may not be obvious in a hasty review.)

While there was bipartisan agreement at Reagan that the government needs to be reformed, lawmakers pushed for caution, and emphasized that Congress still controls the purse strings. 

Musk doesn’t have a say in the Defense Department budget, at least not yet, said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. And there’s still much uncertainty around what DOGE will actually be able to do, he told Defense One.

“I don't think we know what this thing is. It's not a government agency. Congress decides how we appropriate and spend money. We're gonna have to see,” Kelly said.  

Some pro-defense budget Republicans, including Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., worry that the DOGE effort could lead to cuts to major weapons programs that would hurt the U.S. ability to deter China. 

“Don't cut fighters, ICBMs, bombers. Typically when we cut, we're cutting programs. And I said, if you can show a wasteful program—by all means, right, I'm good to look at it. I want to maintain combat capability. We've got to counter China, and I don't want this to be an excuse to cut the force,” Bacon said in an interview.

The Pentagon, and Congress, need to ask fundamental questions about what programs and capabilities they should invest in light of this push for efficiency, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., told Defense One.  

“I think people understand what's coming. How do you optimize the use of your resources? How do you make sure that the resources that you receive in a world where it's certainly not going to be more resources—how do you make best use of those?” Wittman said.  

Ahead of potential cuts, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged the government and industry audience at Reagan to start brainstorming their own programs that could be put on the chopping block. 

“I think when you look at any kind of efficiencies or cuts to any government program or any government spending, each and every one of us, each and every one of you,” Fischer said, turning to the audience, “needs to propose a program that you personally benefit from that you’d be willing to cut.” But Fischer cautioned that they need to be “very careful” about cutting, and that Congress needs to lead the effort.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle at Reagan agreed that the government needs reform. Democratic Rep. Adam Smith said that Musk could help the government move faster and cheaper.

But, Smith said, the main problem with the conversation around DOGE is that it conflates obtaining efficiency with alleviating America’s fiscal crisis. Musk’s effort might be able to save tens of billions of dollars, but to fix the deficit, there would have to be cuts to mandatory spending—Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, Smith said. No matter how efficient the government becomes, Musk is not going to save $2 trillion, he said.

“It’s just not going to happen. I hope they make the government more efficient. The fiscal conversation is a hell of a lot more difficult to have,” Smith said.