Tesla and SpaceX CEO initially declared that his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, had saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by laying off federal workers and cancelling contracts for projects he deemed inefficient.
However, a Monday article in the New York Times shows that some of the South African centibillionaire’s math isn’t adding up. And DOGE representatives are now reportedly scrambling to correct their mistakes. The Times‘ David Fahrenthold, Margot Sanger-Katz and Jeremy Singer-Vine highlighted one specific U.S. Coast Guard contract cancellation that DOGE initially claimed saved $53.7 million. In reality, the contract was only for $144,000, and was already completed 20 years ago.
Musk has claimed that DOGE is transparent and will post “receipts” of all of its purported cost savings online. But aside from the Coast Goard contract completed in 2005, the billionaire’s group has also committed several other glaring errors, casting doubt on the veracity of its claims of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.
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“These are not savings,” government spending tracker Lisa Shea Mundt told the Times. “The money’s been spent. Period. Point blank.”
Out of all the budget cuts DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) has taken credit for, Musk has said five particular cuts saved taxpayers $10 billion. One contract for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that DOGE claimed was for $8 billion was actually just for $8 million. DOGE also erroneously counted a $655 million contract three times. And the group also claimed to have cancelled a $232 million contract at the Social Security Administration, when in reality just one individual project was cancelled to the tune of $560,000.
Out of the $10 billion in purported cuts Musk claimed for these five line items, the actual savings was just $19 million, which is 99.8% smaller than the initial number DOGE proffered. That’s a similar error to the Coast Guard contract, which was 99.7% less than what Musk claimed.
“It’s obvious that they don’t understand,” said Eric Franklin, who runs a firm that consults with the U.S. government on contracting procedures. A $14 million contract with Franklin’s firm was actually on DOGE’s wall of receipts, even though it had been completed in 2021.
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“It’s really akin to a bull in a china shop, he added. “And what do you end up with? It’s just a big mess.”
Click here to read the Times‘ full report (subscription required).
