A long-awaited audit from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has delivered a damning assessment of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), concluding that most of the body’s claimed taxpayer savings lack verification and contain multiple false or overstated figures.
Launched at the opening of former President Donald Trump’s second term in January 2025 and led in its early months by Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE was framed as a bipartisan-style initiative to root out waste, fraud and mismanagement in federal spending. But the initiative shuttered unexpectedly last month, just 18 months after it began operations. Its centerpiece public-facing tool, the so-called Wall of Receipts, publicly claimed $110 billion in total savings across federal contracts, grant agreements and property leases, with DOGE’s final self-assessment inflating that figure to an estimated $214 billion — far short of Musk’s opening pledge of $2 trillion in annual cuts to federal spending via mass layoffs of federal workers and elimination of entire government programs.
The GAO’s Thursday report, requested by Senate Democratic leaders Gary Peters and Richard Blumenthal, reviewed all DOGE savings claims reported between its launch and July 7, 2026. Auditors identified widespread transparency failures and methodological flaws that undermine nearly all of DOGE’s cost-saving assertions. “While DOGE provided some information about estimated savings, several issues limit the transparency and reliability of these reported savings,” the report noted, adding that DOGE failed to share sufficient verification details for 96% of its claimed savings.
Among the most high-profile inaccuracies unearthed by auditors: 108 of the 264 property leases DOGE claimed to have terminated to generate savings were already scheduled for cancellation before DOGE was even established, accounting for roughly $15.3 million of the $53.5 million in claimed lease savings. The GAO also found the Wall of Receipts provided no clear explanation for how savings from terminated leases were calculated, and flagged a $1.7 billion claimed savings from canceling a Defense Department IT services contract that was never actually terminated, meaning no savings were realized at all. Overall, the audit concluded the public-facing tool failed to disclose critical limitations that erode data quality and accuracy.
Musk, who stepped down from his leadership role at the unofficial advisory body in May 2025, did not immediately issue a response to the GAO’s findings. In a statement following the report’s release, a White House spokesperson noted that the administration had informed the GAO that all DOGE personnel were required to complete standard ethics training and adhere to all federal financial disclosure rules.
Senator Gary Peters, one of the requesters of the audit, called the initiative a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American public. “Everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government’s ability to serve them,” Peters said Thursday.
Under Musk’s direction, DOGE pushed for extreme cuts to the federal workforce and pushed for the elimination of entire federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development. Many of the group’s most controversial cuts were met with immediate legal challenges or reversed by the administration itself. In one high-profile example, dozens of U.S. Department of Agriculture officials tasked with monitoring and responding to avian influenza (bird flu) were laid off as part of DOGE’s cost-cutting push, forcing the Trump administration to rehire the workers just days later amid rising public health concerns.
In its public announcement of the body’s closure last month, DOGE struck a defiant tone, framing its formal end as a stepping stone for long-term reform. “While the formal mission of DOGE has come to an end, the mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse will continue,” the group said in a social media post. “Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives.”