People protest Elon Musk and the government cuts made as part of his role in the Department of Government Efficiency outside a Tesla dealership in White Plains, New York on March 18, 2025.
Washington D.C. – One hundred days into the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) experiment, Elon Musk’s sweeping cuts are facing mounting scrutiny—and new evidence suggests they may be more costly than advertised.
Musk, appointed to lead DOGE with a promise to trim $2 trillion from federal spending, has seen his savings projections plummet. What began as a multi-trillion-dollar target was soon downgraded to $1 trillion, and now Musk claims the figure stands at just $150 billion — a mere 7.5% of his initial estimate.
But even that reduced figure may be overstated. According to The New York Times, new budget analyses suggest that the chaotic firings, re-hirings, lost productivity, and paid leave tied to Musk’s aggressive “efficiency” campaign could cost the government upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit specializing in the federal workforce, produced the estimate using federal budget data.
At the Internal Revenue Service alone, a DOGE-fueled exodus of 22,000 employees is projected to slash $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026, according to research from the Budget Lab at Yale University. Combined, these losses approach $145 billion — before even factoring in escalating legal costs tied to dozens of lawsuits challenging DOGE’s sweeping authority.
A White House spokesperson defended the initiative, stating, “Doing nothing has a cost, too, and these so-called experts are conveniently silent on that.” They emphasized that while initial costs are high, savings could materialize in future years.
However, critics argue that the financial math simply doesn’t add up. Musk’s cuts have hobbled key agencies like the IRS, making it harder to pursue tax cheats and costing the government critical revenue. Social Security offices and foreign aid programs have been similarly gutted, while programs hastily shuttered have had to be reassembled — often at great expense.
Observers note that Musk’s team, composed largely of political outsiders, pursued mass firings with little understanding of the legal and logistical barriers unique to public administration. The result has been a costly cycle of wrongful terminations, lawsuits, back pay settlements, and expensive rehiring, particularly for specialized roles like intelligence operatives that can cost up to $1 million to replace.
In practice, DOGE has delivered a degraded federal workforce with no significant net savings — and, arguably, a weaker government at nearly the exact cost.
If Musk intended DOGE to prove that the president could run the government like a corporation, the first 100 days have shown otherwise. Instead, he has encountered the complexities and social obligations that differentiate a state from a business — lessons that may be reinforced by growing public and legal backlash.
