DOGE Says Cost-Cutting Efforts Have Saved an Estimated $55 Billion So Far

DOGE head Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, said its cost-cutting efforts across several federal agencies have saved an estimated $55 billion as of Feb. 17.

The savings came from a combination of fraud deletion, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings implemented across federal agencies, according to DOGE’s website.

DOGE stated that contract cancellations alone accounted for approximately 20 percent of the overall savings accumulated since the advisory body was established.

The top 10 agencies with the highest total contract savings include the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Agriculture.

DOGE has canceled more than 200 contracts issued by USAID, the agency responsible for administering U.S. foreign aid and development assistance, according to the data.

The list includes cancellations of contracts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across several agencies.

Among the contracts canceled was a $45 million DEI scholarship program issued by USAID in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and a $36 million DEI training contract for leadership and supervisors in the Department of Homeland Security, and $130,000 for DEI training at the Department of Defense.

Subscriptions to Politico Pro, The Washington Post, Bloomberg Government, and The Wall Street Journal, were also canceled.

“We are working to upload all of this data in a digestible and fully transparent manner with clear assumptions, consistent with applicable rules and regulations,” DOGE stated on its website.

DOGE stated that the data will be updated twice per week while the website is being improved. The advisory group aims to provide real-time updates in the future.

DOGE announced on Feb. 17 that it found $4.7 trillion worth of payments from the Treasury Department that were missing account identification codes, making the payments difficult to trace.

It stated that the Treasury Department has assigned identification codes called Treasury Access Symbols (TASs), designed to note which account a Treasury payment is linked to. DOGE said it was a “standard financial process” for bookkeeping. However, the codes were not assigned for trillions of dollars worth of payments as the classification field was set up as optional, according to DOGE.

DOGE said the identification codes have now been made compulsory to ensure that all payments can be tracked.

“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE stated in a social media post. “As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going.”

Musk has said that USAID has been placed under review for potential dismantling. USAID’s website has been taken offline, and thousands of its employees have been placed on administrative leave.

After taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the existing U.S. Digital Service as DOGE and tasked it with reviewing federal agencies for potential downsizing and cost reductions. The order states that DOGE’s work is expected to be completed by July 4, 2026.

To conduct audits, DOGE has been granted access to federal systems, sparking legal challenges from some Democratic lawmakers and labor unions who argued the access is unconstitutional.

Attorneys general from 14 states filed a lawsuit on Feb. 13 challenging the Trump administration’s delegation of government access to Musk. The lawsuit alleged that Musk’s access to federal systems is unconstitutional because he has not been confirmed by the Senate. On Feb. 13, USAID employees filed a lawsuit against Musk and DOGE, urging the court to prevent Musk and his team from carrying out any actions.

The White House has previously said that Musk is a special government employee under the Trump administration. The position means that Musk’s service will only be temporary.

Trump told reporters at the White House earlier in February that Musk “can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t.”

“He reports in,” the president said.

Musk told reporters on Feb. 11 that Trump and the Republican Party’s ability to win a government trifecta in the 2024 election was a broader mandate for DOGE’s efforts.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” the tech billionaire said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

The Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, estimates that the U.S. government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion each year due to fraud and improper payments.

Reuters contributed to this report.