Doge initiative, Mr. Elon Musk’s pet project that has purportedly saved an amazing $8 billion. They did so by terminating a controversial immigration contract, garnering national headlines along the way. A little closer look shows that the entire value of the contract they’re freaking out about was a paltry $8 million. This difference begs the question: how accurate are Doge’s reported savings and how were those savings calculated?
In recent public comments, Doge vowed his new administration’s effort to end contracts, grants, and leases set by prior administrations. The overall initiative further intends to combat fraud and shrink the federal workforce. This decidedly grandiose plan is in line with Musk’s stated desire to shrink the federal budget by “at least $2 trillion.” He announced this commitment way back in October.
Doge’s website includes a continually updating count of estimated savings, which as of April 20 reportedly totaled $160 billion in savings. However, less than 40% of this amount is represented in specific, enumerated savings. Unfortunately, this lack of clarity has opened the floodgates for inauthentic claims.
Among its largest reported savings, Doge cites a cancellation of a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organization, amounting to $1.75 billion. Notably, Gavi confirmed having received $880 million from USAID but stated, “Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant.” This gap indicates that there has been poor messaging about the purported ending of the grant.
Doge catalogs many other important reported savings as well, such as $2.9 billion in savings from contracts let by the state. The next biggest savings comes from a canceled contract from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to Centennial Technologies. According to Doge’s claims, this contract was valued at $1.9 billion. The second biggest cancellation was an IT services contract with the DoD, which Doge says saved $2.4 billion.
These are some pretty wild claims considering experts have said the documented savings from early terminations are significantly less than what’s being claimed. A person with knowledge of the contracts told us that “the actual, documentable savings from early termination were about $153 million worth of savings. Additionally, David Drabkin, a longtime expert on federal procurement, warned that the complexity of government contracts could thin the ice. He clarified that the FPDS does not immediately reflect the contracted price that was actually paid. Given this, it can take many months from the time the contract is finalized and the contract actions entered into FPDS. As he elaborated, expected costs in a contract are usually the maximum amounts, not the agreed upon or finalized figures.
Doge further asserts to save Americans over $10 billion per week average since Donald Trump was inaugurated to boot. Even Trump himself acknowledged the scope of Doge’s work, saying, “We’re talking about nearly $200 billion and it’s going up very quickly. But how much of this total is backed up by the savings we’ve achieved?
Doge’s site sends you over to USASpending.gov for the financial deets. It further connects to downloadable documentation from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) to back its reported savings. For example, it includes a saving of $1.76 billion from canceling a contract with A1FEDIMPACT, an IT services firm. It should be noted that these numbers usually do not come with detailed breakdowns or context.
Doge is currently leading the charge for large budget reductions through contract cancellations and other actions. At the same time, its alleged savings are under a magnifying glass. These differences between announced and reported savings raise some important questions about the methodology behind these savings estimates and the presentation of these figures to the public.
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