The Department of Government Efficiency has helped federal agencies terminate 8,500 contracts, saving taxpayers up to $160 billion in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, it says. It also axed nearly 10,000 grants totaling $33 billion, including many from USAID.
It’s terminated nearly 650 leases, resulting in about $311 million in savings.
That totals about a fifth of the trillion dollars that Elon Musk hoped to cut from the federal budget — though many of the big-ticket savings were costs set to be spread over multiple years. And it remains to be seen whether it can keep cutting at the same pace, or whether the trajectory will slow with low-hanging fruit exhausted.
Musk has said he will soon spend significantly less time on DOGE as he returns focus to his private companies. He is currently classified as a “special government employee,” meaning he can…
