DOGE Said It Saved $1.7 Billion by Terminating a Military Health IT Contract. GAO Found the Contract Was Never Terminated.
GAO said DOGE could verify only a small share of the savings it claimed and found 96% of cancelled-grant savings unsupported.
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that the Department of Government Efficiency vastly overstated its $110 billion in taxpayer savings, finding the figures undermined by incorrect estimates, unverifiable calculations, and a lack of transparency.
- When Elon Musk launched DOGE, he promised to slash $2 trillion from federal spending, later revising downward as the group tracked claimed savings on its 'Wall of Receipts' website.
- Auditors found that 96 percent of claimed grant savings remained unverifiable, and DOGE claimed it terminated 13,476 contracts despite nearly 2,000 of them never actually being canceled.
- Financial discrepancies emerged as $27.4 billion in claimed savings were never executed, while 108 of 264 identified leases were already ending before DOGE began, including a $1.7 billion Defense Health Agency contract never terminated.
- With DOGE having formally ended on July 4, the GAO recommended the Executive Office of the President make the site's data-quality limitations clearly visible, though the 'Wall of Receipts' website remains online.
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16 Articles
Elon Musk's U.S. authority Doge reported the savings of $1.76 billion. A control authority now states: The contract continued, money flowed, benefits remained.
Defense News
Military TimesDOGE said it saved $1.7 billion by terminating a military health IT contract. GAO found the contract was never terminated.
DOGE reported $1.76 billion in savings from terminating a contract, but GAO found that the contract was never terminated and no funds were deobligated.
The Washington Post
INTELLINEWSMusk’s DOGE set back the cause of leaner government
The effort took credit for savings that weren't realized.
Elon Musk's Efforts to Cut Spending in the Government Were So Incompetent That It's Shocking, Internal Analysis Finds
In terms of demoralizing the federal workforce and demolishing the public sector, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was a success. In terms of actually saving money, though — its ostensible raison d’être — it was a dismal failure. Musk vowed to slash $2 trillion in government “waste and fraud.” Then he lowered that target to $1 trillion, and behind the scenes reportedly promised Trump to save just a tenth of that figure. In the end…
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