musk's trillion-dollar savings claim faces skepticism and hurdles

On Wednesday, Trump and Musk led the first meeting of the new U.S. government's ministers. The billionaire appeared in a t-shirt with the words "Tech support" and a black hat with the inscription MAGA (Make America Great Again - ed.).

- We simply cannot sustain a national deficit of 2 trillion dollars, (...) we spend over a trillion dollars on interest on the debt. If this continues, the country will effectively become bankrupt. This is not optional. This is necessary. That's why I'm here and I'm receiving many threats and death threats. But if we don't do this, America will go bankrupt - Musk argued.

The billionaire expressed hope that the Department of Government Efficiency would manage to find 1 trillion in unnecessary or illegal budget expenses. Together with Trump, he also suggested that in the name of savings, more mass redundancies of federal employees should be conducted.

See also: a general assessed the situation in Ukraine. Talks about a "critical point"

Despite Musk's grand announcements, DOGE is far from achieving savings in the range of 1 trillion. The official team website mentions saving 65 billion dollars by cancelling contracts, but according to media analyses, these figures are significantly exaggerated.

According to an Associated Press analysis, 40% of cancelled contracts did not involve any savings for the budget. As reported by the "New York Times", the five supposedly largest savings were quietly removed from the DOGE site due to glaring errors.

The team claimed, for example, that they saved 8 billion dollars on one contract, though in reality, it was 8 million dollars. Other savings were counted twice, three times, or even four times.

Read also:

They want to revoke Musk's citizenship. The number of signatures on the petition is growing

Source: PAP