All Elon Musk is doing via DOGE (and not $DOGE) is revealing to the public hidden information the public has the right to know. Everyone knows that "waste, fraud, and abuse" exists, and many people even know where to find it. Once he advises POTUS 47, Donald Trump, of his findings, Trump will either seek legislation to kill that WFA or he will do it via executive order.
Musk is just a pointer to the data; Trump sees where Musk is pointing, then he takes it from there.
All that was missing was the will to eliminate that WFA. Something similar happened with POTUS 40, Ronald Reagan with the Grace Commission. What happened after the Grace Commission submitted its recommendations? I have no idea since I was just a teenager not paying attention to that aspect of government. However, I'm willing to guess that few if any recommendations were followed. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
With DOGE, POTUS 47 is getting help from Musk in his capacity as an advisor. Musk is using DOGE to perform deep dives into digital records and even physical archives to discover how money was distributed. We're hearing about USAID now because that seemed to hit a major nerve, yet USAID receives only a small fraction of budgeted taxpayer funds. Just imagine the outcry we will hear when units such as The IRS and The Pentagon are audited.