Summary
Elon Musk claims to have saved taxpayers $105 billion, but its own figures add up to just $19 billion.
A New York Times report found DOGE falsely credited itself for long-canceled contracts, including a 2005 Coast Guard contract.
DOGE’s inexperienced staff, many tied to Musk’s companies, may be unqualified to understand complex government programs. Mistakes could be deadly, with one former USAID staffer warning tens of thousands of lives may be lost.
The Times alleged DOGE has been removing erroneous “savings” from its wall of receipts just to replace the mess-ups with new errors.
In the financial crisis in 2008, many countries deployed austerity programs to cut debts and costs. Their economies shrank and some still haven’t recovered from that experiment. And DOGE is austerity with a chainsaw, not with a scalpel. It’s going to hurt, a lot.