To what extent have Elon Musk’s Doges cut the spending of the US government?

The Elon Musk Government Department of Elon Musk (DOGE) – set up to reduce American public spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $ 10 billion per week since President Trump came into office.

“We are talking about nearly $ 200 billion and increased increases,” Trump told the BBC speaking of Mr. Musk’s cost reduction campaign on April 23.

The DOGE website indicates that it focuses on the cancellation of contracts, subsidies and leases set up by previous administrations, as well as the government’s fraud and reduction of the government’s workforce.

BBC VERIFY examined the agency’s largest savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis revealed that behind certain major numbers, there is a lack of evidence to save them.

In October, Mr. Musk undertook to reduce “at least 2 billions of dollars” in the budget of the federal government. He later reduced this target and April 10, spoke to saving saving of $ 150 billion after the “reduction in fraud and waste” by the end of the next fiscal year in 2026.

The American federal budget for the last financial year was 6.75 TN.

Doge publishes a total of its estimated savings on its website – which amounted to $ 160 billion the last time the site was updated on April 20.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data on the DOGE website on April 23 and added the total savings claimed contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis only revealed half of these detailed savings had a link to a document or another form of evidence.

The American media also highlighted certain accounting errors, notably DOGE wrongly claiming to have enabled $ 8 billion to cancel an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $ 8 million.

DOGE says he is working to download all receipts in a “digestible and transparent way” and that on April 20, he posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists certain receipts as “unavailable for legal reasons”.

BBC VERIFY examined the four largest savings listed on the DOGE website that had recipes.

The ministry claims that they are added to $ 8.3 billion, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to families familiar with federal contracts, this figure seems to be overestimated.

For three of the savings, DOGE is linked to the documents of the Federal Data System on Acquisitions (FPDS). It is a database that records the contracts provided by the United States government.

The documents show the date of start and end of a contract, the maximum amount that the government has agreed to spend and how much that has been spent.

David Drabkin, an expert in federal contracts who helped develop the FPDS database, said that the maximum listed figure should be treated with caution.

“The FPDs do not reflect the paid real price that at a time of time after the end of the contract and the actions of the contract have been recorded,” he said.

“For example, when buying research and development in a vaccine, no one really knows how much it will cost – so when a price is set, it is not a defined price but rather a higher limit.”

So, if DOGE has the maximum figure, this can represent the expenses projected over several years, rather than a direct economy of the country’s annual expenses.

The largest individual economy listed in Doge is 2.9 billion dollars.

It comes from the cancellation of a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for an installation in Texas to shelters up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

DOGE seems to have taken the “total value of the contract” until 2028 – the end date listed – and has subtracted the amount spent so far to obtain the figure of $ 2.9 billion.

But the contract has been examined each year, which means renewing it until 2028 is not guaranteed.

A familiar source with this contract – which spoke under the cover of anonymity – told BBC Verify that the Doge figure is “based on speculative figures and never used” and that actual expenses depended on the number of children placed in the establishment and the services they needed.

“In truth, the government has never incurred these costs and has never been able to reach this ceiling amount. The real and documented savings in early termination were around $ 153 million,” they said.

They say that this figure comes from the total fixed operating costs of $ 18 million per month (for things like staff and security in the establishment) from February – when DOGE announced the reduction – to November – when the contract was submitted to an annual exam.

They also told us that the site – which closed the same day as the DOGE announcement – had never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and around 2,000 remained in the installation of Texas at its peak, before the figures fell considerably as the border passages decreased.

We contacted the administration for children and families and the Ministry of Health and Social Services which has awarded the contract but has not yet heard.

The second greatest economy listed by DOGE comes from the cancellation of a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a Computer Company called Centennial Technologies which, she said, was worth $ 1.9 billion.

The document with which DOGE is linked to a total contract value of $ 1.9 billion and all other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $ 0.

However, Mr. Drabkin told us that this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government services have poor registration, which means that the amount spent during certain contracts may not always be updated in a timely time.

The start date of the contract is listed in August 2024 and should be executed until 2031.

However, the CEO of Centennial Technologies told the New York Times that the agreement was canceled last fall during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for additional comments.

Another IT contract, this time with the Ministry of Defense, is the third greatest economy.

DOGE says that $ 1.76 billion was saved by announcing a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed at 2.4 billion dollars. An online database of government contracts called GOV superior indicates that this amount was the value of the ceiling.

Again, $ 0 is recorded for the amount that had been spent when the contract was terminated.

We do not know where the Doge figure of $ 1.76 billion – we asked the Pentagon and the supplier on this subject.

The fourth largest economy claimed from $ 1.75 billion comes from the cancellation of a USAID subsidy in Gavi, a world health organization, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

DOGE binds to a page on USASPREND.GOV. It shows that a subsidy was paid to Gavi in ​​three payments, during the Biden administration, totaling $ 880 million.

Gavi confirmed that $ 880 million had been paid by the USAID, but said that the subsidy had been terminated.

“Gavi did not receive a dismissal notice linked to this subsidy,” said a spokesperson.

We found no evidence of the economy of $ 1.75 billion claimed by DOGE, and a familiar source with the contract said that it was not clear from where it came.

We interviewed the office of the USAID Inspector General on the Gubs, but that did not answer us.

Although Doge may have reduced a large amount of public spending, the lack of evidence planned for its most important savings made impossible to confirm independently how much.

DOGE does not have a press office, but BBC VERIFY contacted the White House to request more evidence of these claimed savings.

Additional report by Ned Davies and Alison Benjamin.