GAO Audit Finds Major Flaws in Elon Musk’s Government Cost‑Cutting Claims

Elon Musk’s short‑lived Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shook up parts of the federal workforce and the public sector, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit finds its headline savings claims were riddled with errors and unverifiable accounting.

What the GAO Found

The GAO reviewed roughly $110 billion of the savings DOGE reported for the first half of 2025 and identified widespread problems in how the office documented those results. While DOGE publicly posted about $215 billion in total savings, the audit concluded that many of those figures could not be substantiated.

• Contract terminations: DOGE reported terminating 13,476 contracts, but nearly 2,000 of those contracts were not actually ended. About $27.4 billion of DOGE’s reported savings came from contracts the office failed to terminate.
• Lease and grant entries: Some leases listed as cancelled were already in the process of termination before DOGE existed, and of 264 leases DOGE said it cancelled, 108 were already being closed out.
• Unverifiable savings: The GAO found that more than half of DOGE’s reported $61 billion in contract savings could not be verified or were tied to contracts that were not terminated. The audit also concluded that 96% of DOGE’s claimed grant savings lacked documentation or verification.
• Questionable accounting method: Previous reporting by Politico found that DOGE often used the maximum contract ceiling (the highest possible spending limit) to calculate savings rather than the amounts the government actually spent — a practice that inflates headline numbers.

Context And Expert View

Early reporting found similar gaps: of $52.8 billion DOGE claimed to save by cancelling contracts at one point, independent review suggested actual near‑term reductions were closer to $1.4 billion. Government procurement specialist Jessica Tillipman criticized the approach, saying it was like "taking out a credit card with a $20,000 credit limit, cancelling it and then saying, 'I've just saved $20,000.'"

Bottom line: The GAO audit does not accuse DOGE of specific criminal wrongdoing, but it found pervasive documentation failures and accounting choices that make the office’s headline savings unreliable.

As agencies and watchdogs review DOGE’s record, the episode highlights the difficulty of translating bold, public savings targets into independently verifiable budget reductions. Accurate accounting and clear documentation are essential for credible government cost‑cutting efforts.