Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss Elon Musk on Thursday revealed the stunning scale of fraud and waste he’s encountered in the government.
Appearing on Fox News’ “Special Report,” he and his team at DOGE were asked by host Bret Baier to list the most “astonishing thing” they’ve encountered in their work.
“The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government — it is astonishing, it’s mind-blowing,” Musk replied. “We routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars or more, casually.”
“For example, like the simple survey that was literally [a] 10 questions survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey, [which] would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that,” he added.
Listen:
WATCH: Fox News’ @BretBaier asks @elonmusk: “For you, what is the most astonishing thing you have found in this DOGE process?”
MUSK: “The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government is astonishing. It’s mind boggling. We routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars… pic.twitter.com/xObXm6bMT1
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) March 27, 2025
Absolutely stunned by what Musk had just said, Baier then asked for confirmation.
“For just a survey?” he said.
“A billion dollars for just a simple, online survey, ‘Do you like the National Park?'” Musk responded. “And then there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey, so the survey would just go into nothing. It was, like, insane.”
It’s because of this abundant waste (and fraud) that Musk is determined to cut government spending.
“We want to reduce spending by eliminating waste and fraud and reduce the spending by 15 percent, which seems really quite achievable,” he said. “The government is not efficient, and there’s a lot of waste and fraud. So we feel confident that a 15 percent reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services.”
“This is a revolution. And I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution. But at the end of the day, America’s going to be in much better shape. It’s going to be a fantastic future,” he added.
During the interview, DOGE staffer Steve Davis also piped up to talk about federal credit cards, another “mundane” but “illustrative” area where the department is having an impact.
“There are in the federal government around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees. This doesn’t make sense,” he said. “So one of the things all of the teams have worked on is we’ve [contacted] the agencies and said, ‘Do you need all of these credit cards? Are they being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?'”
“Clearly, there should not be more credit cards than there are people,” Musk added.
Listen:
Steve Davis of @DOGE: “There are, in the federal government, around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3-2.4 million employees. This doesn’t make sense.” pic.twitter.com/4vaGfTJQns
— America (@america) March 27, 2025
Musk meanwhile pushed back on criticism that, one, DOGE has been granted too much power and access, and two, DOGE has been reckless in the cuts its been making.
“They may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that,” Musk said, adding that the department’s approach to cutting spending is to “measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once.”
“Which is not to say that we don’t make mistakes,” he explained. “If we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all, that would be like saying someone in baseball has got to bat a thousand. That’s impossible. So when we do make mistakes, we correct them quickly and we move on.”
He also noted how DOGE’s critics never zero in on “any of the specifics.”
“They’ll say what we’re doing is somehow unconstitutional or illegal or whatever. We’re like, ‘well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any,” he said.
And finally, Musk fiercely defended DOGE’s goal of rooting out waste and fraud from America’s Social Security system.
“I want to emphasize that as a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money,” he said. “And let the record show that I said this, and it can be proven out to be true. Let’s check back on this in the future.”
Watch the full interview below:
My interview with the @elonmusk and the @DOGE team tonight on #SpecialReport pic.twitter.com/KKpxEPtu1Z
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) March 27, 2025
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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