CNN
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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency disclosed for the first time this week a snapshot of some of the government contracts it has canceled, claiming to have saved taxpayers about $55 billion.
But the list of contracts, published to a DOGE website Monday night, raises questions about the accuracy of that tally. The website appears to have used erroneous federal data to claim that DOGE saved taxpayers $8 billion by canceling a single US Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract that was actually worth a maximum of $8 million.
A CNN review of contracting data showed that about two-thirds of the total claimed savings from contracts listed on the DOGE site came from taking the maximum amount that could possibly have been spent on so-called “indefinite delivery” contracts like the questionable ICE contract — even if the government was unlikely to spend that much. One former federal contracting official called DOGE’s savings claims “completely disingenuous.”
The website, DOGE.gov, lists more than 1,100 contracts that DOGE says it canceled, along with 97 government leases that are being terminated or not renewed, on what it describes as the “Wall of Receipts.”
The contracts listed — which total about $16.5 billion in savings — are just a “subset” of all contract and lease cancellations the agency has overseen so far, with the publicly disclosed contracts accounting for about 20% of “overall DOGE savings,” according to the website.
By far the largest canceled contract listed on the DOGE website as of Tuesday afternoon was signed in 2022 between ICE and a Virginia company. The contract is described in federal records as being for “program and technical support services” for ICE’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights.
According to the DOGE site, terminating that contract had saved the federal government $8 billion. That seems to be based on a listing in the Federal Procurement Data System, a government contracting database: When the contract was first signed in 2022, its maximum total value was listed as $8 billion — roughly the same amount as ICE’s entire annual budget, according to the agency’s website.
The company that received the contract, a veteran-owned business called D&G Solutions, told CNN that was a mistake — the contract was actually worth a maximum of $8 million, not $8 billion.
“This discrepancy appears to have resulted from a clerical error in the original government filing upon contract award,” Leah Sanders, the CEO, wrote in an email.
On January 22, two days after Trump took office, the error was fixed, with the contract’s total maximum value amended to $8 million, according to records in the database. Then on January 29, the contract was partially terminated “for all DEIA related services” in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The following day, that was changed to a “full termination.”
The contract is what’s known as an “Indefinite Delivery Vehicle,” a type of federal contract that allows for more flexibility. When the government agrees to an IDV contract, it sets a ceiling amount of the total possible amount it could spend, but doesn’t necessarily commit to spend anything.
“The whole point about it being indefinite delivery is you might buy nothing,” said Joe Jordan, who served as the federal government’s chief acquisition officer during the Obama administration. “When you know precisely how much you want, you can execute that transaction much more quickly.”
Only $2.5 million has been spent so far under the contract, according to data from USA Spending, with an additional $1 million obligated to be spent. Jordan said that it isn’t rare for agencies to agree to this kind of contract and then end up spending significantly below the ceiling amount.
Claiming that canceling the contract had saved the government $8 billion was “completely disingenuous,” Jordan said.
“It is entirely consistent with the DOGE approach of utilizing completely out of context spending data and quick cancellation actions to claim victory for savings that aren’t real,” he said. “They’re nowhere near as much as they are claiming based on all of the data I’ve seen thus far.”
The $8 billion savings claim was first reported by The New York Times.
A DOGE spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon about the apparent mistake. As of Wednesday morning, the department’s website was updated to change the $8 billion figure to $8 million, although the claim of roughly $55 billion in total savings remained unchanged. ICE also did not respond to a request for comment.
The ICE contract wasn’t the only questionable savings amount claimed by DOGE. The second-, third– and fourth-largest savings listed on the DOGE site came from three IDV contracts signed by the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, related to services for the agency’s research office. Each contract lists a maximum ceiling value of $655 million.
Since the contracts were signed in 2020, the government has only committed to spending about $55 million in total under all three of them over the last four and half years, according to USA Spending data. But because DOGE’s tally of savings uses the maximum possible amount that could theoretically be spent on each, the department is claiming it saved taxpayers more than $1.9 billion in total by canceling them.
Overall, about two-thirds of the total savings claimed from contracts listed on the DOGE site — including the original $8 billion listed for the ICE contract — came from IDV contracts, with the savings amount relying on the maximum possible spending.
Of the more than 1,000 other canceled contracts disclosed on the DOGE website, just over 250 were from USAID, which has been a target of intense criticism by Musk and Trump.
About 130 of the disclosed contracts were with the news outlet Politico, apparently for subscriptions. DOGE claimed that canceling those contracts saved about $11 million. Other media contracts canceled included spending on Bloomberg, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
As he’s touted DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts, Musk has repeatedly stressed what he’s described as the group’s “maximally transparent” approach. But he’s also acknowledged that his sometimes exaggerated claims about government spending can miss the mark: “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect, and should be corrected,” he told reporters in the Oval Office last week.