Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrapped up his time as the public face of DOGE in a press conference with President Donald Trump on Monday, leaving behind a total estimated $175 billion in government cost-cutting over the past few months.
The $175 billion in savings from slashing government contracts, selling assets, identifying improper payments, and other cost-cutting measures amounts to $1,086.96 per each individual taxpayer, according to the DOGE website.
The cuts took place all across the government, highlighted by a complete dismantling of USAID, where 83% of the agency’s programs and 5,200 contracts were canceled following the conclusion of a six-week review by DOGE.
Trump discussed some of the other more significant cuts in the Friday press conference.
$20 million for Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East,’ Trump said. ‘Nobody knows what that’s all about. Nobody’s been able to find it. $8 million for making mice transgenders. So they spent $8 million in making mice transgender. And those are better than many others. I could sit here all day and read things just like that.’
While some outlets, including The New York Times and BBC News, have disputed DOGE’s $175 billion estimate and argued the true number is smaller, Musk told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that the savings will continue to build, and he is confident the total cuts will amount to $1 trillion in the coming years.
The DOGE influence will only grow stronger,’ Musk said. ‘I liken it to a sort of person of Buddhism. It’s like a way of life so it is permeating throughout the government. And I’m confident that over time, we’ll see $1 trillion of savings, and a reduction in $1 trillion of waste, fraud reduction.’
Additionally, Musk said that the DOGE cuts would soon hit the $200 billion threshold for fiscal year 25-26.
From the start, DOGE was hit with not only a tsunami of negative press and outraged Democratic lawmakers, but also a series of lawsuits, which bogged it down in protracted legal battles as Musk struggled to reach his original estimates of $1-2 trillion in cuts.
This, coupled with the reality of most of the major end cuts requiring congressional approval to carry out, relegated DOGE’s impact on cutting around the edges of the big programs and agencies it likely would have liked to eliminate entirely.
Musk was asked on Friday what the biggest ‘roadblock’ was for him at DOGE.
‘It’s mostly just a lot of hard work,’ Musk responded. ‘It’s really not any one person or Congress. It’s going through really millions of line items and saying just each one of them makes sense or does not make sense.’
‘Obviously, at times when you cut expenses, those who are receiving the money, whether they receive, whether they’re receiving that money legitimately or not. They do complain, and you’re not going to hear someone confessing that they received money inappropriately. Never. They’re going to always say that they received money appropriately for a report. Of course, naturally, that’s what you’d expect.’
Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.