Musk says DOGE curbed waste but fell short of its trillion-dollar goal, blocking billions in improper federal payments.
Elon Musk said in a wide-ranging podcast interview on Dec. 9 that he believes the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was “somewhat successful” in its mission to reduce wasteful federal spending, that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) gives him recurring nightmares, and that “the Creator” is who he looks up to the most.
Musk, who led DOGE until May, said on “The Katie Miller Podcast” that the initiative succeeded in curbing improper payments and blocking billions in questionable federal disbursements.
“We were somewhat successful,” he said when asked whether the program met its aims.
DOGE initially hoped to target as much as $2 trillion in “waste and fraud” from government spending, with Musk later revising that down to $1 trillion.
“I mean, we stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was entirely wasteful,” he said, describing widespread “zombie payments” embedded in government systems.
“There was probably a hundred, maybe $200 billion worth of zombie payments a year,” he said.
By requiring that every outgoing payment include a valid code and explanation, he said, DOGE forced federal systems to reject many improper disbursements.
“Simply by enforcing that there be a payment code and an explanation for the payment, that payment wouldn’t go out,” Musk said. “It seems insanely obvious, but there are just, call it, 2 or 3 percent of government payments that go out that really should not be going out.”
DOGE has reported significant savings. According to agency updates, federal departments have terminated or descoped dozens of contracts, including 43 agreements with a ceiling value of $3.5 billion. Savings from asset sales, workforce reductions, fraud elimination, and regulatory reforms totaled an estimated $214 billion as of Oct. 4—about $1,329 per taxpayer.
Recent actions have targeted what DOGE called “wasteful” consulting and IT contracts, including a $4.3 million Treasury project to devise a “strategic narrative” and a $29 million Commerce Department contract for project-management staffing.
Musk said DOGE’s successes came with personal cost. When asked whether he would repeat the effort, he replied, “I mean, the thing is, I think instead of doing DOGE, I would’ve basically … worked on my companies, essentially… and the cars, they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”
Critics have accused DOGE and Musk of cutting essential government services and decimating the federal workforce, with a protest movement emerging that targeted Musk’s car company Tesla—which in some cases turned violent. In the United States and elsewhere, Tesla showrooms were vandalized and vehicles set on fire, while Tesla owners were doxxed and threatened.
Musk said in the interview that cutting off entrenched funding streams provoked fierce pushback.
“If you stop money going to political corruption, they will lash out big time. They really want the money to keep flowing. So if you stop it from flowing, there’s like a very strong reaction to stopping the money flowing,” he said.
He also said his time in Washington did little to warm him to federal bureaucracy.
“Well, I wouldn’t say I was super illusioned to begin with,” he said in response to a question about whether he had become disillusioned about how the Washington bureaucracy operates.
“You really want the least amount done by government as possible. The least.”
By Tom Ozimek
