Musk’s DOGE Caught Inflating Savings Again, Fails to Explain Errors

[Thiệu Ngô]

By newsfactsnetwork

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has once again posted inaccurate savings claims, despite previously revising inflated figures on its “wall of receipts.”

An NPR review found that DOGE’s latest update inflated savings totals, claiming $65 billion saved—up from $55 billion—even though verified federal contract cancellations only account for about $2.3 billion. The White House has repeatedly refused to explain the discrepancies or how savings are calculated.

During a Cabinet meeting, Musk defended DOGE’s numbers, saying, “We won’t be perfect, but when we make mistakes, we’ll fix it very quickly.” However, NPR found that errors remained on the site as of Friday, including contracts that were never actually canceled and incorrectly linked data.

Among the major errors:

A $655 million USAID project was counted three times before being corrected to $18 million.
A $232 million Social Security contract that was never canceled is now listed as $560,000 for ending the “Gender X” marker initiative.
A $1.9 billion IRS cybersecurity project was included despite still being active.

Experts say DOGE’s pattern of misleading data undermines its credibility, with one former contracting officer calling it “a failure of due diligence.”