It looks like Elon Musk needs to get out his gilded chainsaw because all those cuts the Department of Government Efficiency is making don’t seem to be adding up. There have already been complaints about a litany of errors on the DOGE’s supposed ‘wall of receipts’, with Musk and his team having to remove $4 billion worth of savings that were incorrectly filed.
Musk has said his new department is on track to make $1 trillion in savings, and although he says this is working out at $4 billion a day, many think the math ain’t mathing.
The tech billionaire has claimed there’s half a trillion dollars of fraud in the likes of Social Security, while he’s also described government-funded non-government organizations as a ‘giant loophole’.
Still, the DOGE’s wall of receipts stagnated around the $105 billion mark and has recently climbed to just $115 billion at the time of writing.
According to the Financial Times, DOGE has yet to dent federal spending, and in fact, it’s actually gone up. The site reports that new Treasury data claims spending rose to a record-breaking $603 billion in February 2025.
Many departments failed to register any decrease, and across the board, spending rose by $40 billion when compared to February 2024 – this marks a 7% increase.
Elsewhere, the first five months of fiscal 2025 recorded an equally record-breaking $1.147 trillion budget deficit. This includes a $307 billion deficit for President Donald Trump’s first full month in office. Worryingly, this was up 4% from the same time a year ago.
With thousands of government jobs being slashed, many are questioning where all the money is going. Discussing Musk’s so-called cuts, economic policy expert Jessica Riedl explained: “Doge savings are so small as not to be identifiable in monthly spending totals.”
Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio adhering to DOGE’s suggestions and halving USAID’s monthly outgoing to $226 million, that figure is ‘dwarfed’ by monthly healthcare rising by 3% a month…working out at $5 billion. There’s also been a 6% rise in Social Security outlays that adds up to another $8 billion.
Riedl continued: “Some 75 per cent of all federal spending goes to social security, Medicaid, Medicare, defence, veterans and interest — and none of that has been touched.
“There is zero indication that such savings have actually been identified.”
Even the Treasury itself has been spending more, highlighting how its own spending spiked by $29 billion when compared to February 2024. This is attributed to a $10 billion uptick in monthly debt servicing (now $86 billion), as well as tax credits and associated payments climbing by $14 billion.
Musk recently spoke out about DOGE’s mission in the aftermath of his own personal wealth plummeting by $29 billion in a single day. Despite looking defeated, he vowed to keep following the money and making cuts.
All of this comes amid calls to restrict DOGE’s powers and the POTUS telling Musk to use a ‘scalpel’ rather than a ‘hatchet’. If this wasn’t bad enough, a federal judge has ordered the DOGE to release records on how it’s running things. We imagine there are some uncomfortable conversations going on right now.
