Victoria Guida is an economics correspondent at POLITICO and author of Capital Letter, a reported column that probes policies shaping the American economy and is closely read by policymakers and business executives.

Elon Musk’s DOGE may have completed much of its work in the federal bureaucracy, but the trickle-down effect from Musk’s chainsaw contributed to the downward employment revisions that drew President Trump’s ire and led to the now-infamous firing of the labor statistics commissioner.