Elon Musk recently announced that he would take a step back from DOGE to focus his energy on Tesla after the company reported significant losses in the first quarter of 2025.
When Musk first began his position with the Department of Government Efficiency, he set the ambitious goal of cutting $2 trillion from government spending. On Friday, April 11, Musk announced that DOGE would lower its projected savings estimate for fiscal year 2026 from $1 trillion to $150 billion. As recently as a March 27 interview on Fox News, Musk said he was on pace to eliminate $1 trillion in federal spending by the end of May.
The most recent estimate for DOGE savings was $160 billion as of Sunday, April 20. This is up $5 billion from the estimated $155 on April 14. The agency estimates it has saved each taxpayer about $993.79.
Here is a look at the amount of money DOGE has reported saving from each agency.
Since it began in late January, DOGE has either cut or reduced grants, leases and contracts in over 176 departments or agencies. The department reports saving $160 billion on its website, but it does not display the amount of money cut or reduced for each contract.
The DOGE website lists 8,219 contracts, 9,521 grants and 102 leases that it has altered in some way; however, 6,502 of these do not show the amount saved, which amounts to approximately 35.35% of the estimated DOGE savings that remain unaccounted for.
In total, the Department of Government Efficiency accounts for $61,473,855,503 on its listed savings.
This leaves approximately $100 billion unaccounted for in the department’s estimated $160 billion in savings.
Of the amounts accounted for from DOGE’s work, the departments with the most cuts from their budgets are:
According to its website, DOGE has sold the leases for the following locations in Tennessee:
East Tennessee:
Middle Tennessee:
West Tennessee:
During an April 22 earnings call for Tesla, Musk announced that he would reduce his hours with DOGE, starting in May, to re-focus on his role as Tesla’s CEO. This announcement came a week after the White House press secretary fired back at claims on X, formerly Twitter, that Musk was leaving his position in the coming weeks.
“Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla,” Musk said during Tesla’s earnings call. He reported that the majority of work needed to establish DOGE has been completed and that his time spent cutting government spending would decrease significantly in May.
According to the United States Department of the Interior, a special government employee is “an officer or employee in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government who is appointed to perform important, but limited, services to the Government, with or without compensation, for a period not to exceed 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.”
The 130 days allotted for Musk to work under the title of special government employee were expected to finish near the end of May. The earliest reported work from DOGE is dated Jan. 21, 2025, which would put the end of his 130-day period on May 31, 2025.
How much has DOGE saved? Here's what the department reported in first 100 days – The Commercial Appeal
