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The total savings reported by Elon Musk's governmental advisory board DOGE have been called into question by experts, as while claims from the Department indicate $65,000,000,000 in cuts, official reports appear to say otherwise.
Having shown strong support for US President Donald Trump during his election campaign trail, Elon Musk was subsequently rewarded with a role as the head of new private advisory board - the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known as 'DOGE' for short.
This new Department, as the name suggests, has been tasked with making federal operations and America as a whole more 'efficient' through cost-cutting means, and made headlines with an initial pledge to slash upwards of $2,000,000,000,000 from the federal budget within its short lifespan.
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Musk and DOGE have been incredibly active since Trump regained office, having recently sent out government-wide emails that threaten the roles of around 100,000 federal employees, and multiple key departments have seen significant budget cuts leading to widespread job losses.
Departments including Veterans Affairs, Health, and Defense have all been hit by DOGE in recent efforts, and a look at the official DOGE website shows that the Department of Education, General Services Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency lead the 'Most Total Savings' leaderboard.
On this same website is the reported overall savings figure of $65 billion, which DOGE claims is a "combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings."
However, as reported by ABC News, the only individual receipts that DOGE officially provide numbers for are lease termination contracts, which amount to $144 million, leaving it 'impossible' to verify the overall figure that Musk's department claims.
Musk himself walked back on the initial $2 trillion target claiming it was unrealistic, but even if the reported $65 billion figure is correct, that still leaves them just 6.5% of the way having already executed mass budget cuts.
Outside of the pure monetary savings, some have called into question the lack of transparency behind the reason why each 'saving' was made. One comment on the r/news subreddit outlines: "I really don't understand the 'list'. It's always like a sentence describing what it spent without further detail. Like what the f*** are those [supposed to] mean? Where did it spend money on? Why is it wasteful?"
Another comment replied arguing that these descriptions are "intentionally vague so it can be whatever they want you to believe it is. Without content it's absolutely meaningless."
Whether this pressure will lead to further transparency is still yet to be seen, but it shows that many aren't as convinced of DOGE's 'efficiency' as Musk might have hoped.
