Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have uncovered more instances of government waste, this time highlighting how private contractors exploited the government during the Biden administration.
Musk pointed to one case involving a simple 10-question survey about Americans’ use of national parks. A contractor was charged nearly $1 billion—almost a third of the department’s budget—for the survey.
Musk said the survey could have been conducted for about $10,000 using platforms like SurveyMonkey.
Musk didn’t hide his shock at the sheer scale of waste, telling Fox News, “We routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars or more.” He then noted that there appeared to be no feedback loop to utilize the survey results, making it even more wasteful.
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The Tesla CEO is working towards trimming $1 trillion in federal waste within DOGE’s first year.
Last month, President Donald Trump and Musk significantly reduced the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is now projected to save approximately $40 billion annually.
Meanwhile, major staffing reductions at the Department of Health and Human Services were announced, while the Department of Education is downsizing to a skeleton crew under Trump’s executive order to dismantle the agency.
The major moves in reducing government waste haven’t come without risks, however. Musk pointed out that his life was in danger while exposing government waste and fraud.
“When you take away people’s … fraud, the money they’re receiving fraudulently, they get very upset, and they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud,” Musk told Sean Hannity.
He added:
“And they want to hurt Tesla because we’re stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government. And, well, I guess they’re bad people. Bad people do bad things.”
Musk said that government fraud is “so high” that it is causing a $2 trillion annual deficit.
“And the cost of our debt has gotten so high that just the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget,” Musk said.
“And it was just growing out of control. So, the country was going bankrupt.”
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