Elon Musk’s crusade to “fix” the US government is unraveling in real-time. His Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has once again been caught inflating its success, quietly erasing over $4 billion in claimed savings after multiple errors were exposed, reported the New York Times. This marks the second massive rollback in a week, fueling skepticism about the billionaire’s ability to overhaul the federal system.
A property of accounts crashing
More than 1, 000 deals from DOGE’s widely-publicized “wall of documents” were deleted or altered later on Sunday evening, making them the subject of Musk’s cost-savings achievements.
Over 40 % of all benefits DOGE had claimed simply weeks prior, including five of its seven largest achievement stories, were the detached deals. According to the New York Times, DOGE replaced them with about 1, 000 new contract cancellations, but with significantly lower overall costs.
The statistics provide a scathing tale. Expand claimed$ 16 billion in benefits when the “wall of documents” first appeared on February 19. Since then, that figure has dropped to less than$ 9 billion, exposing serious shortcomings in Musk’s data-driven strategy. Despite these backs, the program still claims to have saved citizens over$ 100 billion, with little concrete evidence to back up its claims.
a chaos of errors in judgment
The documents have been plagued by glaring problems and outright lies from the beginning. DoGE, according to experts, frequently exaggerated numbers, triple-counted savings, and took credit for refunds that occurred years, even decades before Musk’s participation.
There’s a particular volatility to it, according to Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the traditional Manhattan Institute. Expand appears to have combined a number of agreements, misplaced them, and uploaded them as” pocketbook.” It’s at best clumsy and at worst dishonest.
Among the most recent deleted says:
- A$ 1.9 billion” benefits” from terminating a lease with IRS technical support. In fact, Musk took over the reins of the deal in November.
- A$ 149 million” savings” from a Department of Health and Human Services administrative contract. An related deal was linked to the listing, which contained numerous errors.
- A$ 133 million” benefits” from the canceled USAID deal in Libya. The builder had now finished the project last year.
shifting the responsible
Expand has slowly changed its website to change responsibility onto governmental agencies, then claiming that all figures “originate directly from company contracting officials” in order to stop the mistakes.
However, even after the revisions on Sunday, bogus claims persist. Expand also lists$ 106 million in savings from the reversal of two Coast Guard administrative support arrangements, which ended in 2005 and 2006 under George W. Bush.
Both Musk’s staff and the White House haven’t responded to the growing uproar. However, one thing is unmistakable: the banker’s grandiose attempt to improve government effectiveness appears to be a gimmick.
