President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk celebrated their efforts to slash federal spending earlier than Musk stepped away from his White Home work. Musk wore a black DOGE hat over a bruised proper eye that he blamed on his younger son’s punch. That was Might 30 within the Oval Workplace. Days later, the 2 billionaires had been punching at one another on the social media platforms they personal.
Their battle started over federal tax and spending laws, with Musk calling a Trump-backed invoice “a disgusting abomination” and Trump saying he was “very disillusioned” with Musk. Quickly, Musk claimed credit score for Trump and Republicans profitable in 2024, and Trump threatened to chop off Musk’s corporations’ federal contracts.
I’m sorry, however I simply can’t stand it anymore.
This huge, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending invoice is a disgusting abomination.
Disgrace on those that voted for it: you already know you probably did flawed. You already know it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
The general public show of animosity known as into query the destiny of months of Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) work.
Below Musk’s oversight and with Trump’s approval, DOGE axed billions of {dollars} in grants for state well being departments and scientific analysis. It gutted the Client Monetary Safety Bureau, the company created within the wake of the 2008 monetary disaster to guard customers. All of it however shuttered the US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID), the decades-old division that gives meals and healthcare to folks in different nations.
Nonetheless, as Musk ended his work with DOGE, it was clear that the group’s cost-cutting achievements fell wanting Musk’s objectives. Per week earlier than Trump gained his second time period, Musk mentioned he anticipated to chop “not less than $2 trillion”, with out figuring out a timeframe for doing it. He later lowered that to $1 trillion.
However each figures had been wildly unrealistic. Even when Musk might have eradicated each greenback of non-defence discretionary spending – all the things from air site visitors management, medical analysis, federal prosecutors and prisons to frame management, US embassies and nationwide parks – he wouldn’t have reached his $1 trillion aim.
As of early June, DOGE’s on-line “wall of receipts” accounting of federal {dollars} reduce mentioned that the federal government had reduce $180 billion. However analyses by PolitiFact, The Wall Avenue Journal, The New York Occasions and the conservative American Enterprise Institute confirmed that the tallies Musk offered had been flawed. And whole 2025 federal spending beneath Trump has continued to develop.
Nat Malkus, an training coverage specialist on the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mentioned DOGE’s cuts confirmed an “urge for food for recklessness”, and its error and exaggeration-filled wall of receipts offered “ample grounds for scepticism” about its accuracy. “Past that, the receipts solely cowl a fraction of their actions, making their accomplishments and financial savings unimaginable to confirm,” Malkus mentioned.
Financial savings quantity unclear
DOGE’s “wall of receipts” reported that the $180bn financial savings represented a mix of actions, together with lease and grant cancellations, “fraud and improper fee deletion” and eliminating staff.
Throughout their Might 30 information convention, Musk predicted financial savings would rise to $1 trillion, however their public dispute made DOGE’s future extra unsure. Just a few high lieutenants had already departed; dozens of DOGE staff remained.
DOGE says its wall of receipts is incomplete: “We’re working to add all of our receipts in a digestible and clear method in step with relevant guidelines and laws,” the web site says, calling its listing “a subset of contract, grant, and lease cancellations, representing ~30 % of whole financial savings.”
And it has errors. For instance, DOGE mentioned it could save $740,457 by ending a lease that housed information for the Barack Obama Presidential Library. However the federal authorities had already deliberate to finish that lease in 2025. The property’s leasing firm instructed PolitiFact on Might 30 that the federal government continues to be utilizing the property and paying lease. If the federal government leaves earlier than September, it should proceed paying beneath the lease’s phrases, except one other tenant is secured.
A few of DOGE’s contract and grant cancellations are being litigated, and the federal government might finally be required to fulfil them.
“Even for grants and contracts that DOGE reduce, the claimed financial savings might by no means be realised,” Joshua Sewell, a federal funds knowledgeable at Taxpayers for Widespread Sense, mentioned.
The $180bn determine was aspirational and projected, PolitiFact discovered.
“Itemised, verifiable cuts – these with receipts – are roughly half that quantity,” mentioned Dominik Lett, a funds coverage analyst on the libertarian Cato Institute. “Of these itemised cuts, there are quite a few clerical errors and inflated financial savings values.”
Authorities officers didn’t reply to our questions on what number of federal staff had been reduce. The New York Occasions reported that as of Might 12, the federal government lowered its workforce by roughly 135,000, together with cuts and buyouts. That quantities to a tiny portion of the two.4 million federal workforce, with equally modest financial savings in salaries. The Reuters information company, counting early retirements along with buyouts and firings, mentioned the tally was 260,000.
When 75,000 staff who took buyouts come off the books in October, that can save about $10bn a 12 months, or 0.1 % of federal spending, Jessica Riedl, an knowledgeable on the federal funds on the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote in an essay for The Atlantic. (Trump quoted the 75,000 determine throughout his Might 30 information convention.) However the authorities might find yourself hiring contractors to carry out a few of that work, additional shrinking these financial savings.
Not each company or division confronted widespread cuts. The Justice Division’s staffing was lowered by about 1 %, The New York Occasions discovered. However almost all staff had been reduce at USAID and AmeriCorps. Practically half of the Schooling Division’s workers had been reduce.
Federal authorities spending continues to rise. In April 2025, whole spending was $594bn, $27bn greater than in April 2024, based on the Congressional Finances Workplace. That’s a 5 % enhance. The biggest spending lower – $17bn – got here within the Division of Schooling, which Trump promised to eradicate. However Social Safety, Medicare and Medicaid outlays rose, as did some division spending, together with in agriculture and defence.
A few of DOGE’s line gadgets present financial savings of zero {dollars}, which a White Home spokesperson mentioned implies that the cash has been spent however gained’t be renewed, similar to for information subscriptions or coaching. It additionally confirmed some adverse values for grants; a State Division spokesperson mentioned they had been attributable to an enter error that had since been corrected, though it was nonetheless on the location as of about midday ET (16:00 GMT) on June 5.
It’s unclear whether or not DOGE’s spending cuts can be everlasting as a result of federal regulation requires the chief department to ship proposed cuts, often known as “rescissions”, to Congress for approval. The White Home on June 3 despatched a $9.4bn package deal of rescission cuts to Congress that features reducing international help.
“DOGE can kill tasks, however the spending doesn’t turn out to be financial savings till Congress votes to ‘unspend’ the cash,” Malkus mentioned.
DOGE additionally elevated some authorities prices, similar to these incurred when defending in opposition to lawsuits.
DOGE abruptly reduce programmes however failed to search out mass fraud
DOGE left no state untouched, based on an evaluation by the liberal Heart for American Progress. It terminated leases and grants to well being departments, universities and volunteer programmes throughout the nation.
DOGE listed terminations of a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in state well being division grants, which represented a few of the group’s greatest “financial savings”. These cuts focused well being departments in states together with Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
The administration mentioned the cuts principally affected cash used for the COVID-19 pandemic response.
Twenty-three states challenged the cuts in a lawsuit that argued the transfer precipitated states “super chaos” together with “speedy hurt to public well being initiatives and the termination of enormous numbers of state and native public well being staff and contractors”. In mid-Might, a federal decide issued a preliminary injunction requiring the federal authorities to launch the frozen funding.
“These funds assist state and native well being departments in combatting infectious ailments, in addition to providing psychological well being providers and funding habit remedy programmes,” mentioned Lynn Sutfin, a state Division of Well being and Human Providers spokesperson in Michigan, one of many state plaintiffs.
Different cuts included almost $400m in AmeriCorps grants, ensuing within the terminations of greater than 32,000 AmeriCorps members and volunteers, and the historic gutting of USAID, the nation’s federal worldwide humanitarian and improvement arm.
One native AmeriCorps programme, Serve Louisiana, filed a lawsuit to cease cuts to its $700,000 grant that aimed to position 37 staff with Louisiana nonprofits, together with a meals financial institution, a library and Boys and Women Golf equipment, via August. As of June 2, the lawsuit was ongoing.
“Our nonprofit companions are actually scrambling to adapt with out the assistance they counted on,” Serve Louisiana Govt Director Lisa Moore mentioned.
USAID programmes aimed to scale back starvation and illness and promote democracy globally. In fiscal 12 months 2024, USAID made up 0.3 % of the federal funds. Weeks after Trump’s inauguration, DOGE froze almost all of USAID’s spending and terminated almost all staff.
Musk boasted on February 3 that DOGE had fed “USAID into the wooden chipper”, and two weeks later he wielded a chainsaw at a conservative political occasion to symbolise what he mentioned was his assault on federal paperwork.
USAID’s dismantling had sprawling world results.
In Ukraine – the most important recipient of USAID funds since Russia’s 2022 invasion – regional media retailers misplaced funding and medical charities shuttered programmes that screened for and handled tuberculosis and HIV, NPR reported.
US diplomats in Malawi mentioned US funding cuts to the United Nations World Meals Programme elevated legal exercise, sexual violence and human trafficking in a big refugee camp, ProPublica reported. American embassy officers in Kenya mentioned funding cuts to refugee camp meals programmes led to violent demonstrations, ProPublica mentioned.
Individuals additionally died due to the chaotic help disruptions, based on Al Jazeera, NPR, The Related Press, and different information organisations.
The results are nonetheless unspooling.
The Africa Centres for Illness Management and Prevention estimated that as much as 4 million folks in Africa would possibly die from treatable ailments with out USAID funding. Former USAID officers instructed Reuters that, due to the cuts, meals rations price $98m that would provide 3.5 million folks for a month are decaying in warehouses and a few are prone to be destroyed. The World Well being Group cautioned in March that USAID cuts might set off a worldwide enhance in tuberculosis instances and deaths.
Musk and Trump mentioned that DOGE would ferret out fraud, too. Authorities studies predating Trump’s present time period present fraud is an actual drawback, however up to now DOGE has not confirmed that it has not too long ago uncovered mass fraud.
A White Home spokesperson mentioned there had been 50 legal referrals stemming from DOGE’s work and pointed to 3 people charged for voting as a noncitizen in New York or Florida. Statements by federal prosecutors mentioned that DOGE assisted with the instances. Such instances had been prosecuted earlier than DOGE’s creation.