Beautifully designed, great user experience: Elon Musk shares plans of 'Apple store-like' overhaul of US government operations

Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), alongside his team, plan to modernize the US government operations.

He and his team members are spearheading efforts to improve efficiency within government agencies. They plan to introduce technology-driven solutions that will also be user-friendly and inspired by Apple's design principles.

Elon Musk calls it an ''Apple store-like experience.'' The goal behind this modernization is to update the government systems, eradicate waste, and reduce the occurrence of fraud and abuse.

Elon Musk aims to propose a sleek and user-friendly overhaul of US government operations

In an interview on March 27, 2025, Elon Musk and other propellers in DOGE discussed their objectives with Fox News anchor Bret Baier. During the interview, Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, said he was shocked when he found out about the old limestone mine in Pennsylvania from the 1950s. He said that the cave was filled with the documents of government retirement processes. He said:

''The cave has 22,000 filing cabinets stacked 10 high to house 400 million pieces of paper. So we really believe that government can have an Apple store-like experience. Beautifully designed, great user experience, modern systems.''

He also said that through digitalization, the retirement process can be reduced from months to days.

The facility in question is in Boyers. It is 220 feet below ground and has 700 workers, working on processing 10,000 retirement applications in a month. For security reasons, the mine has metal detectors, and surveillance cameras, and is monitored 24/7. Since it is a limestone cave, it is fire-resistant which makes it an ideal place to store government papers.

Further in the interview, Elon explained how the retirement delays can be resolved. He said that when they asked about how many retirement processes could be done in a month, the reply was that just 8000 a month, which could take six to nine months to complete the paperwork, with the chances of mistakes.

He then further interrogated why it would take so much time, and the reply he got was because of the ''mine.'' He further explained how these plans would affect the Social Security benefits, he said:

No, in fact, what we're doing will help with their benefits. Legitimate people, as a result of the work of DOGE, will receive more Social Security, not less.”

He continued:

Want to emphasize that. As a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money not less money. And let the record show that I said this and it will be proven out to be true. Let's check back on this in the future.”

While the propellers explained their objectives and the benefits digitalization would have on the government, Elon Musk pointed out one problem. He explained how the government databases are not connected, which makes it hard to track information. He also added that even though this may seem like hard homework, it is necessary to eliminate fraud and waste.

This interview was conducted to provide insights to the public on DOGE's initiatives aimed at reducing federal spending and improving government operations.

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