DOGE claims to have 'save over 8 trillion yen by reducing waste' and the documents it released contain too many overestimates and simple mistakes.



The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE),

established in January 2025, has the goal of eliminating government waste. On its official website, DOGE claims to have saved an estimated $55 billion in spending, and has published a breakdown of the savings. However, the published documents contain many overestimates of spending and simple errors.

DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency
https://doge.gov/savings

DOGE's Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/upshot/doge-musk-trump-errors.html

DOGE, which aims to reduce government waste, is reviewing various projects and firing employees in order to reduce government spending. DOGE's head, Elon Musk, is showing his intention to actively reduce staffing, such as sending emails to government employees urging them to 'explain their recent work or resign.'

Elon Musk sends email to government officials demanding they 'explain their recent work or resign,' causing tension in relevant ministries - GIGAZINE


By Steve Jurvetson

DOGE stated on its official website that 'DOGE's estimated savings are $55 billion, a combination of fraud detection and removal, contract and lease cancellation and renegotiation, asset sales, grant cancellations, staff reductions, program modifications, and general savings,' and released a breakdown of the canceled contracts and leases as materials. Trump welcomed the government's savings from DOGE and is consideringreturning 20% of the saved funds to the public .

However, an investigation by the major daily newspaper The New York Times found that the documents released by DOGE were riddled with accounting errors, misleading assumptions, outdated data, and other mistakes. Among the errors reported were 'double or triple counting the same contract,' 'complete contracts being canceled when only part of the work was stopped,' and 'contracts were not terminated by DOGE, but had already been terminated under the Biden administration.'

For example, Michigan environmental scientist David Reed expressed surprise that his project to study invasive species in the St. Lawrence Seaway was on the list of contracts canceled by DOGE. The project was originally scheduled to expire on December 31, 2024, when Reed retired. 'This contract was not canceled by DOGE or anyone else,' Reed said. 'If they're taking credit for canceling the contract, they're lying.'



DOGE's list may not include amounts already spent, and does not take into account the costs of laying off staff or closing offices if a project is canceled. It has also been pointed out that the rush to cancel projects, which are usually a long process, could expose the company to lawsuits from contractors. The New York Times investigation also revealed cases where companies were only able to cancel parts of a package of products and services, but were able to save money on the entire package.

According to a report by CBS News, DOGE listed up to $655 billion worth of projects for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) three times, along with many subcontracts. In addition, a contract for technical support services for Immigration and Customs Enforcement was mistakenly listed as $8 billion, when in fact it was $8 million, and it was confirmed that $3.8 million had already been paid.

The following post from DOGE's official account claims that they saved $1.9 billion by canceling a project with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, according to a Virginia-based vendor called Centennial Technologies, identified from the code in the screenshot, the contract was canceled in the fall of 2024 while the Biden administration was still in power.



DOGE has updated the list from time to time to correct some of the errors, but for some reason, the total savings figure of $55 billion listed on its official website has remained unchanged, even though many of the errors have been corrected through updates.

In addition, there was a delay of up to one month in the release of DOGE's documents, and the contracts and leases listed only accounted for 20% of DOGE's total savings, so The New York Times was not able to estimate DOGE's exact savings using the evidence it had available.

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in Note, Posted by log1h_ik