NonilexApr 13

#DOGE Is Far Short of Its Goal, & Still Overstating Its Progress

#ElonMusk now says his group will produce only 15% of the savings it promised. But even that estimate is inflated with errors & guesswork.

…when #Musk’s group tallies up its savings so far, it inflates its progress by including billion-dollar errors, by counting spending that will not happen in the next fiscal year—& by making guesses about spending that might not happen at all.

#Fraud #law #Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/politics/doge-contracts-savings.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=237B5D61-6E1F-4762-BF03-F7EDA3223643

DOGE Is Far Short of Its Goal, and Still Overstating Its Progress

Elon Musk now says his group will produce only 15 percent of the savings it promised. But even that estimate is inflated with errors and guesswork.

The New York Times
Show threadNonilexApr 13

One of the group’s largest claims…involves canceling a contract that did not exist. Although the govt says it had merely asked for proposals in that case, & had not settled on a vendor or a price, #Musk’s group ignored that uncertainty & assigned itself a large & very specific amount of credit for canceling it.

#Fraud #law #Trump

Show threadNonilexApr 13

It said it had saved exactly $318,310,328.30.

#Musk’s group has now triggered mass #firings across the government, & sharp cutbacks in #humanitarian #aid around the world. Musk has justified those disruptions with two promises: that the group would be transparent, & that it would achieve budget cuts that others called impossible.

Now, watching the group pare back its aims & puff up its progress, some of its allies have grown doubtful about both.

#Fraud #law #Trump

Show threadPaul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
@Nonilex
That's amazing precision. That level of precision has even less credibility than the 98.6 on the health report
Apr 13 at 6:21pmWeb