Elon Musk Claims DOGE Effort Has Halted Hundreds of Billions in Federal Fraud and Waste

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk asserted Sunday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which he co-leads with Vivek Ramaswamy, has quietly saved “hundreds of billions” of dollars by imposing two simple requirements on every federal payment: a valid congressional authorization code and a descriptive comment field.

In a series of posts on X Musk wrote that before DOGE’s intervention, massive federal payments were routinely issued with both fields left blank, rendering genuine audits impossible. He singled out the Pentagon, which he noted has failed every audit for decades because, in his words, “the data doesn’t even exist.”

“Fraudsters don’t confess. They scream that you’re hurting children in Africa,” Musk wrote. He described a common scenario in which DOGE staff, upon requesting basic documentation or wiring instructions for questionable payments, received only silence or accusations of callousness when the funds were frozen.

Musk emphasized that the changes amount to “basic financial hygiene that any normal company does on day one,” yet had never been implemented across the federal government until the DOGE initiative began.

“The swamp is absolutely seething,” he added.

Neither the White House nor the Department of Government Efficiency has released official figures on total savings achieved to date. DOGE, an advisory body created by executive order earlier this year, is tasked with identifying waste and recommending structural reforms but does not have direct statutory authority over federal spending.

Musk’s claims have drawn sharp criticism from some Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, who argue that abrupt payment holds have disrupted legitimate humanitarian and social-service programs. Supporters, however, praise the measures as long-overdue accountability for taxpayer dollars.