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Musk says DOGE has saved $55 billion - analysis shows the claim is a complete (easily checkable) lie [1]
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Date: 2025-02-22
The axiom
Musk lies. That’s the diary. All else is commentary.
The commentary
The Washington Post looked at Elon Musk’s claim that the Dept. of Government Efficiency had already saved the taxpayers $55 billion. They weren’t buying it. In short, they said Elon was a big fat liar. The paper summed up Musk’s dishonesty in an article titled: ‘Musk’s DOGE says it has saved $55 billion. Not so fast’. The subheading explained:
A Washington Post analysis found that hundreds of the canceled contracts DOGE listed represent savings of $0 each. (Bolding mine)
The New York Times also weighed in on Musk’s bald-faced bullshit in an article titled: ‘DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes’. Their subheading explained:
The figures from Elon Musk’s team of outsiders represent billions in government cuts. They are also full of accounting errors, outdated data and other miscalculations.
Politico reported Musk’s mendacity in an article titled: ‘DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don’t match’ — which is a polite way of saying Musk lies like a rug — or is an incompetent moron — or both. Their subheading added:
“Everyone is very well-aware they’re repeating the wrong numbers,” said one manager at a company on DOGE’s list of cuts.
Specifics
WaPo gets the ball rolling by reporting:
Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service claimed this week to have saved an estimated $55 billion through a combination of layoffs, canceled contracts, lease renegotiations and other actions. But a list that it posted of contracts and leases suggests that number is inflated.
Inflated? How? WaPo offers this:
Yet a Washington Post analysis of the contract data found that many of the canceled contracts were already complete, meaning canceling them didn’t yield any money back because they had been fully paid out — and indeed, 417 of the deals on DOGE’s list indicate that they saved $0. Another 51 added up to savings of just under $1 million.
For instance:
The largest one [supposed savings] addressed the cost of a terminated service-disabled veteran-owned management consultant contract with ICE. Earlier versions of the contract in the FPDS database listed $8 billion, but the most recent version listed $8 million. The DOGE site initially listed the higher, older version of the number. DOGE said in a post on X that it has “always used the correct $8M in its calculations.” (LIE)
At least $1.35 billion worth of listed savings on the site comes from a type of contract (indefinite delivery vehicles, or IDVs) that lists a maximum payout to enable easier purchases, even though the government often doesn’t wind up paying that full amount. In about 50 of those contracts, DOGE counted the full amount as a savings. Some of those contracts also involved money that had already been paid and won’t be recovered even though the contract has been canceled.
Sixteen of DOGE’s 20 largest savings on real estate were calculated by assuming that those leases would otherwise have continued for another five years, according to the small print on DOGE’s website. However, records from the General Services Administration (GSA), which handles government real estate, show that all 20 were already due to expire within the next two years — and most this year. Those 16 leases represented more than $106 million of DOGE’s purported savings on real estate.
Among the four other largest purported savings was $7.1 million for offices used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington. Plans to relocate the bureau have been in the works for years, and DOGE’s website said the lease would terminate as of its “original expiration” date of May 14. GSA records confirm the lease was already due to expire before Donald Trump entered office. DOGE did not explain how it had saved money on the lease.
DOGE also said it saved $2.3 million by canceling a lease for parking space in Manhattan used by officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But in an interview, landlord Gary Spindler told The Post that DHS notified him months before Trump took office that it would not renew the lease when it expires in April 2026 due to a relocation. Spindler said he had heard nothing from DOGE about terminating it.
Spindler made the obvious point: “They can’t just cancel a lease. Just like everybody else, they’re obligated.”
The NYT addressed Trump’s plan to give “DOGE dividend” checks to taxpayers. A plan that is a pathetic attempt to buy people’s affection (and ignore his sadism). It’s akin to hiring professional mourners to artificially inflate the dead person’s apparent esteem in the community.
President Trump has been celebrating the published savings, even musing about a proposal to mail checks to all Americans to reimburse them with a “DOGE dividend.” However, according to a New York Times analysis of all the contracts listed, the math that could back up those checks is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data, and other mistakes. While the DOGE team has surely cut some number of billions of dollars, its slapdash accounting adds to a pattern of recklessness by the group, which has recently gained access to sensitive government payment systems.
“Errors,” “assumptions,” “slapdash,” and “recklessness” are the descriptions of the actions of a drug addict (QED).
The NYT outlines Musk’s deceptive techniques.
Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained an error that inflated the totals by billions of dollars. In at least one instance, the group claimed they had canceled an entire contract when they had halted only part of the work. Other contracts the group said it had closed, ended under the Biden administration.
Even people who love DOGE’s goals think Musk’s team of bungling vandals are fucking up. The NYT reports:
Amber Hart, the co-founder of a research and advisory firm, the Pulse, that specializes in federal contracting, said it’s simply impossible to create a real-time accounting of contract savings with the data the team has used — as DOGE promised on its website. “There’s no way for them to make it possible unless they completely overhaul the way the data is reported — which would be awesome,” she said. “I would absolutely love for them to break that. They’re breaking the wrong things.”
Politico reports that Musk’s haphazard, bumbling, and overstated — yet still highly harmful — attempt to save money is causing MAGA politicos to sweat.
Many conservatives have cheered on DOGE as it has swept into federal agencies axing contracts and public employees started losing their jobs en masse. Musk himself greeted an enthusiastic MAGA crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, brandishing a literal chainsaw. But DOGE’s slash-and-burn approach and the Trump administration’s fumbles on some federal job cuts has also started to put pressure on GOP elected officials at home.
Musk should watch his back. Elections are over the horizon (aren’t they always). GOP incumbents can sense the voters’ mood is darkening. Those who don’t dare take on Trump directly — which is approximately all of them — need a scapegoat. The Republicans will find a subject for a well-deserved public stoning. That target will be the neo-apartheid oligarch. It couldn’t happen to a nastier guy.
The good news is that, even if MAGA won’t point fingers at Trump, everyone with a modicum of political competence can make political hay by smearing Trump as the guy who unleashed an unguided and mentally unstable immigrant in America’s political temple. If the Democrats don’t have that modicum, they need to hang it up.
America’s liberals deserve robust representation in the halls of power.
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