May 22, 2025 07:23 PM
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-elon-musk-un...inside-nih
EXCERPT: . . . The flip-flop on the Seattle Children’s Hospital grant illustrates how DOGE’s “move fast and break things” approach has often been self-defeating and tested the limits of the law. It also shows how DOGE’s disruptive cost-cutting efforts have undermined and frustrated others who are intent on reforming the government.
“There’s a lot of work to be done at a place like the NIH,” a senior DOGE official said, adding that the agency is “just not being as productive” as other agencies in rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. “Elon’s time is valuable, so if you’re not getting anything done, it’s going to be a harder relationship,” the official said.
NIH officials said that the agency’s doctors and medical experts—not Musk’s team—are better qualified to investigate its research funding and decide what to cut. “If he was given his way completely,” the senior NIH official said about the DOGE official who criticized the agency, “he would really damage the president and end up hurting people.
Another senior NIH official added: “The NIH depends on having people with expertise to be able to assess which types of programs are most wasteful.”
Because of the clash, fear and suspicion are swirling throughout the agency. NIH officials are “all kind of scared” of DOGE as its staffers continue to show up “unannounced” at NIH buildings, according to a senior White House official.
Some NIH researchers alert each other in an online group chat whenever they see DOGE staffers in the hallways demand that agency employees show their identification badges or risk being fired. “Now we all walk around with our badges displayed prominently,” a scientist at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute told The Free Press.
The NIH is now led by another Washington outsider, Jay Bhattacharya. As a Stanford University professor and medical doctor with a PhD in economics, he was shunned by the medical establishment for opposing Covid lockdowns and mask mandates. Bhattacharya, who was confirmed by the Senate in late March and started at the NIH on April 1, was a vocal critic of Anthony Fauci, the former face of the U.S. government’s Covid response.
During the Trump administration, the NIH has laid off more than 1,200 people, or about 6 percent of its employees as of last September. The agency has also halted new research funding to universities and banned its scientists from directing funding to foreign research partners, as well as cut tens of millions of dollars in grants to study misinformation and disinformation, as The Free Press reported.
NIH officials have said they are pleased with some of the changes implemented by DOGE staffers. For instance, DOGE streamlined more than two dozen communications and legislative affairs offices at the NIH into the office of the director. The move is making it easier to spread the agency’s message, the officials believe. Spokespeople for the NIH and DOGE didn’t reply to requests for comment from The Free Press.
While Musk blew into Washington with big aspirations for cost-cutting, his unconventional tactics have increasingly clashed with reality and faced pushback. As Musk winds down his time at DOGE, he has vowed to spend less time in Washington. But none of the staffers he installed at DOGE, including many young software engineers with no prior government experience, seem to be following Musk out the door just yet... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: . . . The flip-flop on the Seattle Children’s Hospital grant illustrates how DOGE’s “move fast and break things” approach has often been self-defeating and tested the limits of the law. It also shows how DOGE’s disruptive cost-cutting efforts have undermined and frustrated others who are intent on reforming the government.
“There’s a lot of work to be done at a place like the NIH,” a senior DOGE official said, adding that the agency is “just not being as productive” as other agencies in rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. “Elon’s time is valuable, so if you’re not getting anything done, it’s going to be a harder relationship,” the official said.
NIH officials said that the agency’s doctors and medical experts—not Musk’s team—are better qualified to investigate its research funding and decide what to cut. “If he was given his way completely,” the senior NIH official said about the DOGE official who criticized the agency, “he would really damage the president and end up hurting people.
Another senior NIH official added: “The NIH depends on having people with expertise to be able to assess which types of programs are most wasteful.”
Because of the clash, fear and suspicion are swirling throughout the agency. NIH officials are “all kind of scared” of DOGE as its staffers continue to show up “unannounced” at NIH buildings, according to a senior White House official.
Some NIH researchers alert each other in an online group chat whenever they see DOGE staffers in the hallways demand that agency employees show their identification badges or risk being fired. “Now we all walk around with our badges displayed prominently,” a scientist at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute told The Free Press.
The NIH is now led by another Washington outsider, Jay Bhattacharya. As a Stanford University professor and medical doctor with a PhD in economics, he was shunned by the medical establishment for opposing Covid lockdowns and mask mandates. Bhattacharya, who was confirmed by the Senate in late March and started at the NIH on April 1, was a vocal critic of Anthony Fauci, the former face of the U.S. government’s Covid response.
During the Trump administration, the NIH has laid off more than 1,200 people, or about 6 percent of its employees as of last September. The agency has also halted new research funding to universities and banned its scientists from directing funding to foreign research partners, as well as cut tens of millions of dollars in grants to study misinformation and disinformation, as The Free Press reported.
NIH officials have said they are pleased with some of the changes implemented by DOGE staffers. For instance, DOGE streamlined more than two dozen communications and legislative affairs offices at the NIH into the office of the director. The move is making it easier to spread the agency’s message, the officials believe. Spokespeople for the NIH and DOGE didn’t reply to requests for comment from The Free Press.
While Musk blew into Washington with big aspirations for cost-cutting, his unconventional tactics have increasingly clashed with reality and faced pushback. As Musk winds down his time at DOGE, he has vowed to spend less time in Washington. But none of the staffers he installed at DOGE, including many young software engineers with no prior government experience, seem to be following Musk out the door just yet... (MORE - missing details)
