I admit to being technologically impaired, but I needed to find out quickly the extent of the money allegedly saved and the amount of federal jobs cut by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative led by Elon Musk. I looked and saw lots of press releases and articles in lots of media outlets, but they were contradictory at best and somewhat incomprehensible at worst. (A few talked of trillions of dollars immediately contemplated.)
Not having any technical skills in engaging artificial intelligence (AI), I figured I would try it out. One of my apps responded by saying they could find no data when I asked the above question. I was surprised to say the least, having read a barrage of claims by the Trump administration and numerous counterclaims by mainstream and other media outlets. This was supposedly an example of our finest technically skilled technocrats who were going to revolutionize and downsize government and save huge amounts of money (hopefully enough to offset some of the loss of revenue resulting from the administration’s tax cuts for large corporations and the ultra wealthy).
Although Musk resigned in May, I figured somebody in DOGE must be keeping track of the work and its results, but apparently not enough for my AI, “Pi,” to find any “specific information.” Believing there must be some mistake, I tried ChatGTP.
That app gave me a sort of mealy mouthed answer based on government claims of $55 billion of savings “… (with possible higher figures), but actual confirmed savings significantly lower due to data issues.”
The response on job losses from all related firings, retirements, and buyouts was a little more specific, “… at least 260,000 federal civilian jobs.”
That savings number was far from the supposed numbers published by DOGE on its website in June, its “Wall of Receipts,” which showed savings and cuts of $180 billion. PolitiFact, The Wall Street Journal, the American Enterprise Institute, The New York Times, and numerous Wall Street advisors quickly showed how faulty these claims were and how they quickly passed into the realm of Trumpian hyperbole. An analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute said at the time that the claimed cuts were reckless and told news outlets that the results of DOGE’s accomplishments and savings were impossible to verify. Jessica Tillman, associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University Law School, has said, “[A]nything that’s been said publicly about [DOGE’s] savings is useless.” The last claimed “Estimated Savings” number on the DOGE website on October 4 was $214 billion, but apparently ChatGTP does not believe that “estimate.”
I guess someone who understands AI (such as the experts employed by DOGE, or even Mr. Musk) can explain these two answers and why any data that is available to show confirmed savings with any particularity is “significantly lower due to data issues.” I thought that our best and brightest, the ones who are going to Mars and giving us self-driving cars, could at least add up how much the release of 260,000 federal employees saved and what the possible diminution of government services is valued at. Since AI did not help me much, I reviewed the claims of the Trump administration and others based on my brief AI research.
Based on the above numbers, claimed savings divided by the total of employees reduced, each person let go resulted in a saving of $212,000. I guess that seems high but not too unreasonable considering the add-on costs of salaries (such as pensions, payroll, etc.) The savings are not just from job cuts, however: The administration concedes that the renegotiation of contracts, finding fraud (so far not revealed in any detail), the renegotiation of leases, and other actions by DOGE contributed to the alleged $55 billion in saving. The deficit will not be reduced since Congress will have to cut future appropriations to the agencies impacted.
Various news sources have concluded that the government estimates that contract savings in particular are way overstated (but then again, we have had large cuts and firings at the various government entities that develop the statistics of government and economic spending, so who knows if the administration’s new head of DOGE is committed to making the administration look good or turning out unbiased data).
Speaking of unbiased data, we have to remember that Musk first promised to save $2 trillion in one fiscal year when he first started DOGE. That claim soon changed when he promised on March 6 of this year that they would cut $1 trillion of spending by the end of the 2025 fiscal year in September 30, 2025. To date, 45 days after that deadline, they have admitted to only 18 percent of that estimate in supposed actual savings (after giving them the benefit of their significant “data issues” and Musk’s desertion of his job in May 2025). I guess that makes our current 18 percent success rate better than the nine percent we would have had they kept to the $2 trillion estimate—although it would be nice if Trump followed up with his promise to give the American people a 20 percent percent dividend from the DOGE savings and reduce the deficit. But then again, if you believe any promises coming from the administration, I have a nice bridge to sell you.
To evaluate the chainsaw that Musk wielded (literally and figuratively) against the federal government, we have to consider how the cuts in services have impacted the nation. As Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, has said, “DOGE is not offering any solid claims that it has improved services in any way. Rather, it has made the quality of some government services worse.” In other words, the only benefit from its work is the real savings in the cost of those services, offset by the attendant possible decrease in their effectiveness.
Martha Gimbel of the Yale Budget Lab literally laughed when asked whether DOGE and Musk improved any government services, responding, “No, there has clearly been a degeneration of government services.”
There have been longer waiting times for appointments at VA hospitals, longer waits when people call the IRS, longer lines at Social Security offices, and the “departure of many highly experienced Social Security employees has led to workers with far less training giving advice on benefits,” according to Steven Greenhouse in The Guardian.
The list of affected agencies, who are now dealing with additional resulting problems, is long, including Veteran Affairs, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the National Institute of Health, Health and Human Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Education, the Food and Drug Administration, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). One staggering statistic is the 80,900 personnel slated for future cuts at the VA, many of them healthcare workers. The cuts to medical research funding will definitely hurt research in cancer and diabetes and other diseases, and the cuts in the Department of Education will impact students around the country and increase the burden on local school budgets (the list goes on).
There were about 2.3 million federal civilian government employees at the end of March 2025 (excluding the Postal Service). The best estimate is that we have lost, or will lose, a total of 260,000 as a result of DOGE’s cuts and related retirements. Federal government civilian employees are about 1.5 percent of the civilian population, a percentage that has been pretty consistent for the last 10 years. The full consequences of the actions of DOGE have yet to be felt, whether it is the reduced healthcare for veterans, the effect of the virtual dismemberment of USAID, or the gutting of federal aid to education. I believe that our friends and neighbors who work for us in government services are like us—no less honest or more crooked. The condescending attitude of Musk’s techno brothers towards government employees as fungible automatons who should be replaced as a cost-cutting measure, no matter the effect on government services (or how the firing process affects them individually), is reprehensible.
If there is fraud or waste in administrating the federal government, it should be dealt with, first through inspectors general in the individual agencies and then through appropriate prosecutions. To take a chain saw to arbitrarily cut jobs and change our government without the oversight of Congress and the courts is to grant the powers of a king to the president, an unelected egomaniac with the attention span of a newt and the philosophy of destroying everything and then replacing it with whatever system he wants. I remember a comment made often in Vietnam: Throw the grenade in and let God sort them out. That was not the way to conduct a war, and it is not the way to efficiently or compassionately conduct our government.