Elon Musk has a thing for sleeping in offices. We saw it at Tesla during the Model 3 "production hell." We saw it again at X (formerly Twitter) after the acquisition. So, when the Department of Government Efficiency—better known as DOGE—set up shop in Washington D.C., nobody was shocked to see the same pattern.
But the specifics of the wild upgrade Elon Musk demanded for his DOGE office are actually weirder than the headlines suggest. It wasn't about gold-plated desks or executive suites. In a twist that sounds like a fever dream for any government bureaucrat, the "upgrades" were basically a mix of IKEA flat-packs and high-end server requirements.
Efficiency is the name of the game, right? Well, Musk’s version of efficiency involves turning a federal building into a 24/7 dorm room.
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The IKEA Invasion and the $25,000 Laundry Bill
If you walked into the General Services Administration (GSA) headquarters at 1800 F Street NW in early 2025, you would’ve seen something truly bizarre. Instead of the usual drab government cubicles, the sixth floor was being transformed.
Musk’s team didn't wait for the slow-moving federal procurement process. They literally dragged IKEA beds, dressers, and lamps into at least four different office spaces. Career GSA employees, people who have worked under multiple presidents, described the scene as "exceedingly odd."
One of the most controversial "upgrades" wasn't a piece of tech at all. It was an invoice.
Internal documents revealed a plan to spend roughly $25,000 to install a professional-grade washing machine and dryer on the sixth floor. Why? Because when you’re asking "super high-IQ revolutionaries" to work 80+ hours a week, they eventually need clean socks. Most federal buildings aren't exactly zoned for residential laundry, which led to a fair bit of internal friction with the GSA’s "Sleeping in Federal Buildings" policy.
High-IQ Tech for a Low-Tech Government
While the beds got the clicks, the real upgrade was the digital "chainsaw." Musk didn't just want a place to nap; he wanted total access.
Basically, the DOGE office was designed to be a "War Room" with levels of data access that made traditional agency heads sweat. Musk complained loudly that the government runs on "ancient computers and software." He wasn't lying. Some of these systems are over 50 years old.
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To "fix" this, the DOGE office demanded:
- Direct Administrator Access: They bypassed standard protocols to get into GSA and Treasury systems.
- A "Software Modernization Initiative": This wasn't just a suggestion; it was an executive order requirement to bridge the gap between different agency networks.
- Real-Time Dashboards: Instead of waiting for quarterly reports, Musk wanted a "receipts" system that tracked every government contract action over $3,000 in real-time.
Honestly, the "upgrade" was less about furniture and more about turning the office into a high-speed data node that could bypass the usual red tape. It was an attempt to run the U.S. government like a Silicon Valley startup.
The Human Cost of 80-Hour Weeks
You can’t talk about the office upgrades without talking about the people. Musk’s DOGE team was lean. We’re talking about a group of maybe 100 people trying to audit a $6 trillion budget.
The "lifestyle" upgrades—the beds, the proposed laundry, the child’s play area with stuffed animals—were there to facilitate a culture of extreme work. It’s a polarizing strategy. On one hand, you have supporters who say this is exactly the kind of energy needed to cut the fat. On the other, you had federal engineers resigning because they didn't want to help "dismantle critical services."
There was even a $1 limit placed on most government credit cards to stop "wasteful" spending. Imagine being a federal traveler trying to book a hotel room and finding out your card is capped at a dollar. That's the kind of chaotic efficiency the DOGE office lived by.
What This Means for You
The DOGE experiment is a case study in "move fast and break things" applied to the most complex bureaucracy on Earth. Whether you love or hate the methods, the office upgrades proved one thing: Musk wasn't interested in being an advisor. He wanted to be a disruptor.
If you’re looking to apply these "efficiency" lessons to your own world, here’s the reality check:
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- Tech Over Furniture: The IKEA beds were a sideshow. The real power was in the data access and the software overhaul.
- Identify the "Ancient" Systems: Musk targeted 10 critical legacy systems that were costing taxpayers $337 million a year. Look for the "old" tech in your own life that's costing more to maintain than it’s worth to replace.
- The 80-Hour Myth: While Musk swears by it, the early disbanding of some DOGE functions suggests that extreme work cultures often lead to "accidental" mistakes—like the brief, accidental cancellation of Ebola prevention funding.
The DOGE office at the GSA might be quieter now, but the blueprint for a "War Room" approach to government is already out there.
To see how this affected your specific area, you can look up the "DOGE receipts" for local federal office closures. Check the GSA’s real estate database to see if federal leases in your city were on the termination list, as hundreds of offices were slated for closure to save an estimated $500 million.