Washington DC - Billionaire Elon Musk is under new scrutiny over his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after a watchdog group made stunning findings.
On Wednesday, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office published a report detailing how an audit conducted from June 2025 through this month found that DOGE "did not accurately report actions taken on contracts."
For starters, DOGE's "Wall of Receipts," a popular page on their website that tracked cuts made by the department in real time, included several entries that were misleading or outright dishonest.
Of the 264 leases it claimed to have cut, 108 were "already in process for termination" before DOGE was established, and of the 13,476 contracts they claimed to have terminated, nearly 2,000 were never actually ended.
These distorted figures also affect the amount of money DOGE claimed to have saved US taxpayers from its efforts, as the GAO found that nearly $35 billion of the $61 billion in contracts savings could not be corroborated.
The report also detailed how a number of DOGE employees were given government jobs with no oversight, which raises "difficult ethics questions."
The GAO said it has reached out to Musk and DOGE officials for questioning, but have not received a response.
The legacy of DOGE
During the 2024 presidential race, Musk spent millions of his own money and campaigned to help Donald Trump run for re-election.
After winning, Trump rewarded the tech mogul by signing an executive order to create DOGE and tapping Musk to lead it.
For several months, the agency wreaked havoc on government infrastructure by firing thousands of federal employees, making massive cuts to social programs and government grants that many saw as essential, and terminating leases for underused office spaces.
To date, the agency's website claims it has saved $215 billion, or $1,335.40 per taxpayer – which is only a bit more than 10% of the $2 trillion Musk had originally promised.
It's also worth noting that the Trump administration has no plans to release any type of review of DOGE's work, according to Office of Management and Budget Director and Project 2025 co-author Russ Vought.