Elon Musk said on the campaign trail that he would slash $2 trillion from the federal budget. Then it became $1 trillion. Then $150 billion. According to Steve Bannon, it’s now effectively nothing. "None of this makes sense," Bannon said during the Semafor World Economy Summit in April, criticizing Musk's Department of Government Efficiency project for falling far short of its ambitious promises.
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Bannon Doubts Real Savings
Bannon, a former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, said that although Musk arrived in Washington, D.C. with a bold plan, the results were minimal. "He went from $2 trillion a year to $1 trillion a year to $150 billion next year with nothing this year," Bannon said. “We need to know exactly what he found as far as fraud goes.”
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Bannon demanded “specific accounting” of the DOGE program's work, suggesting that despite Musk's intentions, the effort to cut waste and fraud has lacked real substance. "Treasury's got to sign off, [the Office of Management and Budget] has got to sign off. Every department head. We have to have a letter of certification that not one data set or piece of data… are held by anyone except the Trump administration and the U.S. Government," he said.
When asked whether he trusts Musk not to misuse government data, Bannon replied: "Trust but verify."
Musk has officially stepped down from DOGE, concluding a 130-day tenure as a "special government employee." In a post on his social media platform X on Thursday, Musk expressed gratitude to Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful government spending, saying, “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
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Numbers Don't Add Up
The Atlantic reported that DOGE's actual verified budget savings totaled just $2 billion, a far cry from the $165 billion the agency claimed at the time of its analysis in early May. According to the report, the project has been plagued by false savings, repeated counting of the same cuts, and expired contracts being listed as fresh reductions. Musk’s team once claimed $8 billion in savings from ending an $8 million contract.
“If you thought DOGE was really about cutting costs, you weren't in on the joke,” The Atlantic concluded.
Even Musk himself has admitted it didn't go as planned. In an interview with the Washington Post recently, he said, "The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized." He acknowledged DOGE had become a political scapegoat: "DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything."
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Frustration On All Sides
Musk also expressed disappointment with Trump's signature spending package, the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill," telling CBS News: "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing."
For Bannon, the project's failure underscores the need for structural reform and transparency. He insisted the country is running out of time to fix its finances. "Our choices narrow every day," he said. "The current system is not sustainable."
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