The Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) Elon Musk said Thursday on Fox News that the group found the federal government spent almost $1 billion on a survey that could’ve only cost thousands.
Following President Donald Trump entering office in January, his administration pushed for Musk and DOGE to comb through the government’s spending and identify potential cuts to save taxpayer dollars. On “Special Report with Bret Baier,” the Fox News host sat with Musk and his DOGE team and asked the billionaire what has been the most “astonishing thing” he’s witnessed so far in this process.
After the publication of Musk’s statements, CBS News reported that the outlet had found no evidence that the Department of the Interior had spent or planned to spend almost a billion dollars on a survey or any contract.
During the interview, Steve Davis, a member working with Musk at DOGE, stated the survey had allegedly been part of an $830 million contract by the Department of the Interior, which was reportedly stopped by DOGE. However, according to CBS News, the outlet was unable to find evidence of the contract on DOGE’s site or the list of other contracts the DOGE team stated they had terminated.
“The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government,” Musk said. “It is astonishing. It’s mind-blowing. We routinely encounter waste of a billion dollars or more, casually.”
“For example, like the simple survey that was literally [a] 10 questions survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey, [which] would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that,” Musk added.
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Baier could be seen interrupting Musk as he sounded astonished, later asking, “For just a survey?”
Musk responded and said the survey was essentially pointless as it had no “feedback loop.”
“A billion dollars for a simple online survey — ‘Do you like the National Park?,’ and then there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey,” Musk said. “So the survey would just go into nothing. It was insane.”
In February, Democrats’ opposition to Musk’s and DOGE’s place in the Trump administration began to ramp up after the billionaire announced during an X discussion that he and the president had agreed to upend the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Musk warned the agency was wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.
Some of the programs funded through USAID had not only attempted to advance a radical leftist agenda worldwide, but some had a high risk of landing in the Taliban’s hands and also aiding an organization linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Baier told Musk how he and DOGE technically had 130 days as a “special government employee,” asking if he believes he will be able to complete his task in the time frame allotted.
“I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk said.
“We are cutting the waste and fraud in real time. So every day like that passes, our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week. So far we are succeeding,” Musk added.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include additional reporting from CBS challenging Musk’s claim.
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