DOGE Has Saved About $50 Billion So Far, Says Treasury Secretary Bessent

Then-Treasury Sectretary nominee Scott Bessent testifies before the Senate Committee on Finance at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 16, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) created under the Trump administration has saved about $50 billion so far, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a new interview.

“So that’s a very good start,” Bessent told Fox News of the cuts in federal spending, adding that DOGE’s efforts could ultimately lead to “several percent” of the U.S. gross domestic product in savings.

Bessent said that Americans “don’t have to be concerned” about DOGE’s activity in the IRS and said that one DOGE employee is “looking at this outdated IT system,” which is “all they’re doing.” He also disputed claims that DOGE will investigate the IRS’s taxpayer systems.

Meanwhile, two people with DOGE have “read-only access” to IRS payment systems, and they cannot make changes.

“There are very strict guardrails around them,” Bessent said.

Since the early days of the Trump presidency, DOGE employees have gone to multiple agencies and accessed their computer systems to look for fraud, waste, and abuse. Musk has said that DOGE could potentially cut trillions in spending and lower Americans’ taxes.

While the DOGE team has been scrutinizing the systems of various agencies, lawsuits have been filed claiming President Donald Trump and DOGE are violating the law. At least two are targeting Musk himself.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration said in filings that Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and X, is not technically part of DOGE but rather a senior adviser to Trump.

The declaration was filed Monday as the Trump administration fends off the lawsuit from several Democrat states that want to block Musk and DOGE from accessing government systems. The litigants say Musk is wielding “virtually unchecked power” in violation of the Constitution.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has said that Musk is not a DOGE employee and has “no actual authority to make government decisions himself,” Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, said in court papers. The documents do not name the administrator of DOGE, whose work Musk has championed in posts on his social media platform X and in a public appearance at the White House.

Earlier this week, two Democrat senators sent a letter to the acting IRS director to obtain information about DOGE’s efforts in the tax collection agency and speculated that their activity could lead to a delay in sending back taxpayers’ refunds during the ongoing tax season.

A lawsuit was also filed against DOGE by several groups and unions alleging that DOGE is violating tax privacy laws by accessing IRS systems.

“DOGE will also have access to tax records of Mr. Musk’s business competitors, which are held by the IRS. No other business owner on the planet has access to this kind of information on his competitors, and for good reason,” the lawsuit said.

Last week, Trump was asked about DOGE and the IRS, to which the president replied that he believes DOGE is doing a great job and that no agency will escape its gaze.

“I think that the Internal Revenue Service will be looked at like everybody else; just about everybody is going to be looked at,” Trump told reporters on Feb. 13 at the White House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.