He's Donald Trump's "first buddy" and will lead the Department of Government Efficiency's bid to nuke bureaucracy across US federal government departments.
Now Elon Musk has hinted that DOGE could be let loose on legacy technology, which wolfs down a large share of an IT budget that spends well over $100 billion of taxpayers' money.
"The government runs on ancient computers & software," the billionaire tweeted on X. "Needs an upgrade!"
To illustrate his point, Musk shared a report written last year by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), highlighting 10 critical federal IT legacy systems that are" outdated or obsolete" and "in need of modernization. Some of them are up to half a century old.
"These legacy systems provided vital support to agencies' missions," GAO wrote. "According to the agencies, these legacy systems ranged from about 8 to 51 years old and collectively cost about $337 million annually to operate and maintain."
A legacy of government IT overspend
Several of these systems use older languages such as Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL).
"GAO has previously reported that reliance on such languages has risks, such as a rise in procurement and operating costs, and a decrease in the availability of individuals with the proper skill sets," the watchdog continued. "Further, several of the legacy systems were operating with known security vulnerabilities and unsupported hardware and software."
Of the 10 agencies responsible for these legacy systems, eight agencies "did not have documented plans for modernizing their systems or had incomplete plans", which means they are missing milestones to complete modernization, a description of the work necessary to upgrade them and "details regarding the disposition of the legacy system".
GAO added: "Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that will be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including aging—or "legacy"—systems. These systems can be costly to maintain and vulnerable to hackers."
Which departments are running legacy tech?
The graphic above shows which departments were included in GAO's probe.
A previous investigation by the watchdog found the US State Department is running 23,689 hardware systems and 3,102 network installations that were reaching the end of their days, creating a potentially severe cybersecurity risk for US diplomats and other employees.
Some operating system (OS) installations running on State Department networks “had reached end-of-life over 13 years ago,” auditors warned.
DOGE, which is led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is looking for staff to take part in its bonfire of bureaucracy and fulfill its mission to cut one-third of the $6.75 trillion federal budget.
"We don’t need more part-time idea generators," the new department wrote on its X account. "We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants."
