WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — The Trump administration’s high-profile push to slash government spending is facing new scrutiny after nearly $1 billion in reported savings vanished from the initiative’s public website overnight, raising doubts about the accuracy of the program’s cost-cutting claims.
The Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE — an office created by President Donald Trump through executive order shortly after taking office, has been central to his administration’s pledge to trim the federal budget by trillions. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, tapped by Trump to lead the charge, has been overseeing the sweeping effort to eliminate programs, contracts, and staff across federal agencies in what the administration framed as an effort to reduce the deficit and streamline government.
But according to a report published Wednesday by NOTUS, nearly $962 million in previously listed savings were quietly deleted from DOGE’s website, which has served as the primary public record of the initiative’s efforts. The outlet characterized the removal as a dramatic overnight change, noting that “hundreds of other items” were also altered to inflate their individual savings figures.
The website, which Musk and Trump once promoted as a transparent, real-time tracker for federal spending cuts, has been in “constant flux and riddled with errors,” NOTUS reported, with some of the listed savings linked to contracts or grants canceled before Trump even took office. The site’s shifting numbers have raised questions about whether DOGE has overstated its accomplishments.
The cuts, part of a broader campaign promise dating back to Trump’s 2024 presidential run, originally aimed to eliminate $2 trillion from the federal budget. But even before the inauguration, Musk tempered expectations, cutting the pledge in half. In a January live-streamed interview, Musk explained, “If we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one. And if we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and kind of free up the economy to have additional growth… There will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome.”
Despite the lofty goal, the figures reported this week suggest the actual reductions fall far short of both the original and revised targets. According to Forbes, Musk told Trump during a recent Cabinet meeting that the administration was now on track to cut $150 billion by fiscal year 2026 — a fraction of the initial projection.
In addition to the erased savings, NOTUS reported that nearly 650 grants and several dozen contracts and leases were scrubbed from the DOGE website over the past several weeks, the bulk of which disappeared during a two-hour window between midnight and 2 a.m. Tuesday. The site also contains several listings marked “redacted,” offering no explanation or detail about the canceled items.
Musk had previously pledged that DOGE would provide weekly updates and disclose canceled contracts on social media, but NOTUS found no updates posted from late March until this week, when the website’s data underwent the sweeping overnight revision.
The fluctuating figures and lack of transparency have fueled bipartisan concern in Washington, as watchdogs and lawmakers question whether the program’s savings are real or simply reshuffled accounting. The administration has not publicly addressed the discrepancies, and DOGE has yet to release an official explanation for the sudden removal of nearly a billion dollars in claimed savings.
As the White House leans into its campaign-season message of fiscal responsibility, the growing spotlight on DOGE’s data raises broader questions about whether the Musk-led effort is delivering the real savings promised — or simply rewriting the numbers.
