Elon Musk claimed his Department of Government Efficiency will save $150 billion from the federal budget in fiscal year 2026 — a far cry from the $1 trillion the tech titan was confident he could slash.
The Tesla CEO appeared at President Trump’s West Wing Cabinet meeting on Thursday to announce the savings DOGE has found in its hunt for waste, fraud, and abuse in executive branch agencies.
DOGE chief Elon Musk at the Cabinet meeting on Thursday.AFP via Getty Images
“Thanks to your fantastic leadership, this amazing Cabinet, and the very talented DOGE team, I’m excited to announce that we anticipate savings in [Fiscal Year] ‘26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion,” Musk triumphantly proclaimed.
In an interview just last month, Musk boasted that the bureaucratic geniuses at DOGE would be able to slash $1 trillion in federal spending within the first 130 days of his tenure as a special government employee.
“Our goal is to reduce the deficit by one trillion dollars. From a nominal deficit of two trillion, to try and cut the deficit in half to one trillion,” Musk told Fox News’ Brett Baier.
“I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” the SpaceX CEO said, then emphasizing that the steep amount would be cut within the weeks-long period.
Elon Musk is a special government employee with just a 130-day contract.REUTERS
The $150 billion mark results in savings for American taxpayers of $931.68 each, according to the DOGE website, which lists cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration as producing the most savings.
As part of its waste and abuse eliminating measures, DOGE announced Thursday that millions of dollars in unemployment claims have gone to “fake people,” including some who haven’t even been born yet.
DOGE claimed in a post on X that since 2020, 24,500 people over 115 years old claimed $59 million in unemployment benefits, 28,000 people between the ages of 1 and 5 years old claimed $254 million in benefits, and 9,700 people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69 million in benefits.
Elon Musk with members of the DOGE team during a joint interview where they announced some of the new agency’s findings.FOX News
In the most egregious case, one person claimed $41,000 and was listed with 2154 as their birth year, DOGE charged.
“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future! This is so crazy that I had to read it several times before it sank in,” Musk wrote on X in reference to the jarring data.
“Of course, toddlers and someone with a birthdate 129 years in the future are unemployed, but they definitely don’t qualify for unemployment benefits,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told The Post.
Meanwhile, Musk and Trump’s DOGE project was handed a win on Tuesday, with judges in the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the president is empowered to fire federal workers — after a lower court attempted to order the federal government to reinstate at least 24,000 terminated probationary employees.
