Well, folks, it seems like Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s and self-proclaimed progressive firebrand, has found an unlikely partner in Elon Musk as they both take aim at one of Washington’s biggest sacred cows: the Pentagon’s bloated budget. On the day of President Trump’s inauguration and the launch of the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Cohen announced a tongue-in-cheek meme contest to rally support for Musk’s efforts to rein in runaway defense spending.
If the idea of Cohen, a longtime progressive activist, teaming up with Musk, a tech billionaire who’s become something of a conservative hero lately, feels a little surreal, welcome to 2025, where strange alliances are becoming the norm. The contest, dubbed “DOGE vs. Blob,” is designed to shine a light on the Pentagon’s jaw-dropping inefficiency while engaging the public in a uniquely 21st-century way: with memes and cryptocurrency.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Cohen laid out the stakes in classic populist style: “Pentagon bureaucrats torch $2 million of taxpayer money every minute. In honor of @DOGE, I’m launching @dogevsblob, a meme contest highlighting the biggest gov’t spender + waster. We’re giving away 1,000 @dogecoin a day. If anyone can slash the Pentagon budget, @elonmusk can. Let’s support him.”
Pentagon bureaucrats torch $2 million of taxpayer money every minute. In honor of @DOGE, I’m launching @dogevsblob, a meme contest highlighting the biggest gov’t spender + waster. We’re giving away 1,000 @dogecoin a day. If anyone can slash the Pentagon budget, @elonmusk can.… pic.twitter.com/aHPiaiOU0f
— Ben Cohen (@YoBenCohen) January 20, 2025
The website for the contest, DOGE vs. Blob, is as fiery as you’d expect, pulling no punches as it blasts the Department of Defense for failing its seventh consecutive audit and for sinking more than $6 trillion into “disastrous war efforts, malfunctioning weapons systems, and crony contracts.” The Pentagon, nicknamed “the Blob” for its sprawling inefficiency and uncontrollable appetite for taxpayer dollars, is presented as the ultimate target for reform. Participants in the contest are encouraged to create and share memes that expose government waste, with daily prizes of 1,000 DOGE coins and a grand prize of 10,000 DOGE coins for the best submissions.
For Cohen, who has a history of supporting progressive causes, this might seem like a departure. After all, his company has often aligned with left-wing narratives, such as Ben & Jerry’s 2023 July 4th tweet controversially calling for the U.S. to return “stolen Indigenous land.” But Cohen has long been vocal about his opposition to U.S. foreign policy and military adventurism. In recent years, he has criticized the U.S. government’s involvement in the Ukraine war, calling for peace negotiations instead of endless weapons shipments—a position that Musk has also echoed.
What’s clear here is that Cohen isn’t letting party lines or ideological divides stop him from tackling an issue that he feels passionately about. In comments to Fox Business, he emphasized the importance of finding common ground, saying, “I think the key to get anything done in the country is to work with people of any political persuasion where you have common ground. And that’s what I’m looking to do.”
And let’s not overlook Musk’s role in all of this. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has made it his mission to tackle waste across the federal government, with the Pentagon’s sprawling budget being one of the most glaring examples. Musk’s approach combines his business acumen, technological innovation, and unapologetic style of confrontation, and it’s ruffling plenty of feathers in Washington. But as Cohen points out, if anyone has the boldness (and perhaps the stubbornness) to take on the Pentagon, it’s Musk.
Critics will undoubtedly question the sincerity of this alliance. Is Cohen’s participation a genuine effort to address waste, or a clever marketing ploy that happens to align with his anti-war principles? Is Musk leveraging Cohen’s progressive credentials to lend bipartisan credibility to DOGE? Perhaps it’s a little of both. But whatever the motivations, the meme contest—and the broader mission it represents—is shedding much-needed light on an issue that both parties in Washington have historically ignored.
The Pentagon has long been treated as untouchable, with its ballooning budget justified under the guise of “national security.” Yet the DOD’s failure to pass audits, its track record of overpaying for everything from malfunctioning weapons systems to $1,000 toilet seats, and its role in perpetuating endless wars have made it a prime example of what’s wrong with federal spending. The “Blob” has grown fat and complacent, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
