What hath DOGE wrought?

Musk allies spin DOGE as having a “higher purpose” beyond federal budget cuts.

Determining how “successful” Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) truly was depends on who you ask, but it’s increasingly hard to claim that DOGE made any sizable dent in federal spending, which was its primary goal.

Just two weeks ago, Musk himself notably downplayed DOGE as only being “a little bit successful” on a podcast, marking one of the first times that Musk admitted DOGE didn’t live up to its promise. Then, more recently, on Monday, Musk revived evidence-free claims he made while campaigning for Donald Trump, insisting that government fraud remained vast and unchecked, seemingly despite DOGE’s efforts. On X, he estimated that “my lower bound guess for how much fraud there is nationally is [about 20 percent] of the Federal budget, which would mean $1.5 trillion per year. Probably much higher.”

Musk loudly left DOGE in May after clashing with Trump, complaining that a Trump budget bill threatened to undermine DOGE’s work. These days, Musk does not appear confident that DOGE was worth the trouble of wading into government. Although he said on the December podcast that he considered DOGE to be his “best side quest” ever, the billionaire confirmed that if given the chance to go back in time, he probably would not have helmed the agency as a special government employee.

“I mean, no, I don’t think so,” Musk said. “Would I do it? I mean, I probably … I don’t know.”

On another recent podcast, Musk suggested that he learned his lesson after trying and failing to make the US government run like a business, The Guardian reported. “Best to avoid politics where possible,” Musk said.

As Musk simultaneously fans the flames with fraud claims while de-emphasizing DOGE’s ability to address them, Musk’s allies in government, in Silicon Valley, and on X continue to tout DOGE as the wrecking ball government needed.

But while Musk continues warning of fraud that can supposedly be easily found, critics are raising questions about whether DOGE cuts might have inflicted lasting damage by chasing Musk’s fraud fantasies.

Estimates vs. reality

When Musk first proposed DOGE, he was on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, vowing to help end government waste and fraud. At an October 2024 rally, Musk claimed DOGE could save the federal government “at least $2 trillion,” The Guardian reported. But immediately after Trump’s inauguration, he slashed his goal in half, vowing to cut $1 trillion in government waste from the federal budget. Later, as DOGE efforts faced immediate backlash, the goal was reduced again, this time to a much more modest $150 billion, the Cato Institute reported.

In reality, The Guardian reported, “much of what the agency has done remains a mystery.” Although Musk promised DOGE would be transparent, the government has impeded lawsuits seeking discovery documents to create paper trails on DOGE cuts. And DOGE’s cost-cutting tracker on its website can’t be trusted, The Guardian reported, as it contains “egregious errors” and DOGE’s accounting methods are unreliable.

Even setting aside that the tracker and “wall of receipts” are likely “overblown,” The Guardian noted, DOGE claims to have cut about $214 billion in government spending and saved about $61 billion in cancelled contracts—far from reaching Musk’s extreme waste estimates. Meanwhile, Democrats investigating DOGE reported in July that the agency “may have caused around $21.7 billion in waste.” As to DOGE slashing about nine percent of the federal workforce, the Cato Institute estimated that it may have triggered more costly federal contracts, perhaps increasing costs and possibly degrading services down the road.

The bottom line is that government spending increased under DOGE, and there was no noticeable impact on the month-to-month budget after DOGE cuts began, the Cato Institute reported. “The federal government spent $7.6 trillion in the first 11 months of calendar year 2025, approximately $248 billion higher by November of 2025 compared to the same month in 2024,” its report said.

Over time, more will be learned about how DOGE operated and what impact DOGE had. But it seems likely that even Musk would agree that DOGE failed to uncover the vast fraud he continues to predict exists in government.

DOGE supposedly served “higher purpose”

While Musk continues to fixate on fraud in the federal budget, his allies in government and Silicon Valley have begun spinning anyone criticizing DOGE’s failure to hit the promised target as missing the “higher purpose” of DOGE, The Guardian reported.

Five allies granted anonymity to discuss DOGE’s goals told The Guardian that the point of DOGE was to “fundamentally” reform government by eradicating “taboos” around hiring and firing, “expanding the use of untested technologies, and lowering resistance to boundary-pushing start-ups seeking federal contracts.” Now, the federal government can operate more like a company, Musk’s allies said.

The libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, did celebrate DOGE for producing “the largest peacetime workforce cut on record,” even while acknowledging that DOGE had little impact on federal spending.

“It is important to note that DOGE’s target was to reduce the budget in absolute real terms without reference to a baseline projection. DOGE did not cut spending by either standard,” the Cato Institute reported.

Currently, DOGE still exists as a decentralized entity, with DOGE staffers appointed to various agencies to continue cutting alleged waste and finding alleged fraud. While some fear that the White House may choose to “re-empower” DOGE to make more government-wide cuts in the future, Musk has maintained that he would never helm a DOGE-like government effort again and the Cato Institute said that “the evidence supports Musk’s judgment.”

“DOGE had no noticeable effect on the trajectory of spending, but it reduced federal employment at the fastest pace since President Carter, and likely even before,” the Institute reported. “The only possible analogies are demobilization after World War II and the Korean War. Reducing spending is more important, but cutting the federal workforce is nothing to sneeze at, and Musk should look more positively on DOGE’s impact.”

Although the Cato Institute joined allies praising DOGE’s dramatic shrinking of the federal workforce, the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, Elaine Kamarck, told Ars in November that DOGE “cut muscle, not fat” because “they didn’t really know what they were doing.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.