WASHINGTON ― It was all memes and shit-posting when billionaire Elon Musk first suggested in August he could lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” if Donald Trump won the White House again.

A reporter had asked Trump after a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, if he would consider naming Musk to a Cabinet position, something he had not previously suggested, and Trump eagerly said he would.

“I am willing to serve,” Musk wrote in response, alongside an artificial image of himself at a lectern bearing the name of his imaginary agency.

The whole thing was literally a joke. The department name is a reference to a throwback internet meme based on a picture of a Shiba Inu dog, “Doge,” which served as inspiration for Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency token. That was also created as a joke.

For a while, it looked like DOGE itself could turn into a joke, merely an updated version of past deficit-reduction panels. But after the election, Trump announced DOGE would be a real entity, something to “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government.” By Inauguration Day, Trump had issued an executive order creating DOGE as an office within the White House, with Musk as a temporary employee serving for 130 days. Things got serious fast.

DOGE burned perhaps too brightly, and 100 days later, we seem to be in the twilight of the Musk era in Trump’s government. The chainsaw-wielding billionaire promised Tesla shareholders last week that he would soon spend less time on his government work. Last week, Trump noticeably described Musk in the past tense: “He was a tremendous help.”

DOGE has changed the government, but not in the way Musk or Trump promised. Musk vowed last year to find $2 trillion in savings from the nearly $7 trillion federal budget. He later lowered his target to $1 trillion, which was still an absurd goal because Congress controls federal spending, and Trump has promised not to touch popular retirement programs that represent the biggest segments of federal spending.

After months of infiltrating federal agencies, unlawfully accessing sensitive government data and imposing mass chaos and layoffs, a seated and subdued Musk said at a Cabinet meeting this month that his team would deliver a mere $150 billion — a figure he still hasn’t been able to provide an accounting for.

Meanwhile, the federal government has already spent more money this year than it did last year, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Budget experts think it’s fully possible DOGE, with its cuts to the revenue-gathering IRS and payouts to departing employees, may end up costing the federal government money.

The glaring irony amid all of this is that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has resulted in widespread inefficiencies across government agencies. Remember Musk’s mandate from a couple of months ago that hundreds of thousands of federal employees send in five bullet points every week to their managers, outlining what they did during the week? At least some employees are still doing this, and it’s utterly pointless.

“As far as we can tell, no one is reading them,” said one Defense Department employee who requested anonymity to protect their job. “I send them with read receipts requested and have never got notification of them being read. It is annoying and time-consuming and just insulting.”

A now-former IRS employee who DOGE put through the wringer before she finally quit this month ― she and her entire team of 30 people were fired, then rehired, then put on administrative leave, then pressured to resign, then warned of more firings coming ― said that if anything is clear, it’s that DOGE has plowed through the government like “a wrecking ball” without any understanding of what it’s doing or how anything works.

This former IRS employee, who requested anonymity as she begins a new job, was working in the estate and gift tax division, which goes after extremely wealthy tax evaders. Most of her division is being gutted, so many of the cases it has been working on will have to be closed.

“My division collects MILLIONS in tax revenue for the American people,” she said in an email. “What a waste of everyone’s time and money. Several people will now not pay what they owe to the American people, and they will continue to not pay because there is no one there to ensure their compliance. And, this doesn’t make anything more efficient.”

DOGE has lost its initial shine, too. Musk’s approval rating sank to 35% in a Washington Post / ABCNews / Ipsos poll released Monday.

One reason people may be over Musk is because of his decision to attack Social Security, one of the government’s most popular programs, as a bastion of fraud and waste.

Musk claimed in February that millions of people over the age of 110 years old were falsely listed as still alive in the Social Security Administration’s system, suggesting the agency was sending out fraudulent checks. Trump repeated the claim in a speech to Congress, even though it wasn’t true. In March, Musk went on to call Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” a scam swindling Americans out of their payroll contributions for no future benefit.

Musk used these claims to justify major changes at the agency, including cuts to a phone service that would have forced millions of seniors to travel to agency field offices to file for retirement benefits. Musk claimed, without evidence, that the change was necessary because of fraudsters bombarding the government with telephone requests to switch people’s bank account information in order to siphon their benefits.

“This is happening all day, every day, and then somebody doesn’t receive their Social Security. It’s because of all the fraud loopholes in the Social Security system,” Musk claimed in March, massively overstating the extent of fraudulent requests to change bank accounts.

After all of Musk’s hype about this threat, the Social Security Administration wound up postponing and then calling off the cuts to the phone service for people filing benefit claims, saying it had figured out a new way to prevent telephone fraud after all.

Democrats may not have a national leader or a coherent plan to counter Trump, but Musk’s attacks on Social Security have made him an almost perfect villain, allowing Democrats to undercut Trump’s attempt to position himself as a champion of the program.

As DOGE winds down its efforts, people outside of Washington, D.C., are starting to feel the negative effects of what Musk has done. One Social Security field office worker told HuffPost this week they’re seeing longer lines and angrier customers because people are seeing news stories about Musk’s antics and worrying their benefits are in trouble. At the same time, Musk’s layoffs have made it even harder to keep up with the workload.

“They’re doing everything they can to hinder people from getting the benefits they paid for,” the field office worker said. “It’s making it look like the government is broken and it’s not. It’s broken because people who don’t understand it are trying to run it.”

Attention federal employees: If you have thoughts to share on how DOGE has created efficiency and savings at your agency ― or on how it has done the opposite ― we would love to hear from you. Drop us a line: Jen.Bendery@huffpost.com