When Trump got elected back into the White House in November 2024, everybody expected big spending cuts.
After all, the US has been running a budget deficit since 2001.
Some key parts of Trump’s plan was to cut unnecessary government spending, increase revenues through tariffs, and facilitate tax cuts.
The spending cuts were assigned to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through an executive order, signed on the 20th of January.
Since then, DOGE has moved fast, targeting bureaucracy with mass layoffs and agency closures.
But how much has really changed?
And what comes next as Elon Musk announces that he’s distancing himself from the department?
How much has DOGE actually saved?
DOGE says it has saved the federal government $160 billion.
But that figure represents just 8% of Musk’s original $2 trillion savings goal, 16% of his revised $1 trillion target, and just 2.35% of the 2024 US Federal Budget.
Source: Investopedia
According to the DOGE website, cuts come from canceling over 8,400 contracts ($30 billion), terminating nearly 9,700 grants ($33 billion), and ending 643 leases ($311 million).
These add up to about $63.3 billion.
The remaining $97 billion remains unspecified.
Investigations from the New York Times, Fortune, and Pantheon Macroeconomics suggest the real savings may be closer to $100 billion.
For instance, some contracts listed as “terminated” were never signed in the first place.
Others had clerical errors, like a supposed $8 billion cancellation that turned out to be $8 million.
In many cases, the numbers on DOGE’s public ‘Wall of Receipts’ were rounded up or simply incorrect.
Even if every cent was real, the savings equal less than 9% of last year’s $1.8 trillion federal deficit.
Meanwhile, a new Congressional budget proposal could add $5.8 trillion to that figure over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Musk’s savings wouldn’t come close to offsetting that. In contrast, reports have shown that government spending has actually increased under Trump, in comparison to Biden’s final years.
What has been cut and what’s been broken?
DOGE’s actions have gone well beyond trimming excess.
Over 2 million federal employees have been offered buyouts or dismissed.
Programs under USAID, the EPA, IRS, FDA, and even the Department of Energy have been dismantled or defunded.
At the FDA, layoffs have left drug safety databases outdated or missing.
These systems are essential for identifying side effects, tracking recalls, and informing physicians.
A two-week delay in issuing a consumer safety alert about a tainted joint supplement illustrates the new communication bottlenecks under DOGE-era rules.
Several officials warn that the FDA is now flying blind on labeling, dosage, and manufacturing data.
Other examples include a $59 million FEMA payment for migrant housing in New York City hotels that was flagged and canceled.
A $15 million contraceptive program in Afghanistan was cut.
Even a $700,000 research grant into the wording of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing quote was removed.
Each of these has been promoted on Musk’s social media as proof of the war on waste.
But perhaps Musk’s team has neglected the potential blowback of miscalculated firings and cuts.
For example, cuts to the IRS are projected to reduce revenue collection by $500 billion annually, according to internal estimates.
Cuts to the FAA and other safety-related agencies have come during a wave of aviation incidents.
Agencies like OSHA and the NTSB now operate with skeleton staff, despite their importance to worker and public safety.
Who’s really running DOGE?
Elon Musk has recently announced he’s stepping back from DOGE in order to focus more on Tesla, whose shares have dropped 36% this year. This leaves DOGE at the hands of a group of business insiders.
They include Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder; Steve Davis of The Boring Company; Tom Krause of Cloud Software Group; and former Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong.
The truth is that these individuals have little or no government experience.
Their private-sector backgrounds are part of what DOGE supporters say makes the effort effective.
But critics argue it’s a recipe for chaos. Many agencies have reportedly made cuts without fully understanding the functions they were dismantling.
Even conservative figures are calling for more transparency.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, recently demanded “a very specific accounting” of fraud and abuse DOGE claims to have found.
He also warned that programmatic cuts are not enough and has criticized Musk for failing to touch defense spending or deliver real reform.
“The math doesn’t work,” he said, referring to the current $1.3 trillion increase in the deficit this year alone.
What’s the bigger picture behind DOGE?
There are four dominant theories about what DOGE is actually doing.
None of them can be confirmed at this point but they are based on some data and facts.
The first points to a Silicon Valley movement known as “Exit,” created by thinkers like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan.
This idea envisions a future of “network states” and self-governing cities, free from traditional federal oversight.
DOGE could be clearing the ground for that by stripping away services unrelated to market infrastructure.
The second theory is techno-libertarianism, where government is viewed as an outdated constraint.
Musk has called for a “spring cleaning” of federal regulation.
He’s argued that creating more than one federal agency per year since 1776 is absurd. His vision draws comparisons to the pre-New Deal era, when industrialists operated with little oversight.
The third theory is that DOGE is a corporate power grab for Musk’s own interests. SpaceX benefits from NASA’s reduced role. Tesla gains from cuts to vehicle safety regulation.
Peter Thiel’s Palantir has landed IRS and ICE contracts for data management. DOGE has largely spared agencies that directly fund or support Musk-linked ventures.
The fourth is simple incompetence. Reports show DOGE staff are often too young, too inexperienced, or too uncoordinated to execute cuts effectively.
Examples include mistakenly firing nuclear safety regulators, then quietly rehiring them to avoid a crisis.
Much of the chaos appears unplanned.
What happens now?
Musk’s reduced role doesn’t mean DOGE is slowing down. Tesla’s CEO is planning to work just twice per week and the department’s work will continue through July 2026.
But the question is whether it will deliver some actual changes, or simply cause structural damage.
Legal scrutiny is increasing. Courts have already blocked DOGE’s access to Treasury data and halted parts of its agenda.
Unions, attorneys general, and government watchdogs are pursuing lawsuits over data handling, constitutional authority, and transparency.
Public opinion is divided. A CBS poll found broad support for DOGE among Republicans, but a Pew survey in February found that 54% of Americans view Musk unfavorably, with 37% holding a “very unfavorable” view.
Addtiionally, Tesla has faced boycotts, and vandalism against its vehicles has spiked recently.
The broader market is reacting too. IBM recently reported $100 million in canceled federal contracts.
Consulting revenues are down, and executives warn that further cost-cutting could drag down economic activity in government-exposed sectors.
Now, what remains is a fragile experiment that has already disrupted the fabric of government, without proving it can improve it. But there are still 14 months left to get the full and final picture.
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