On Day One, President Donald Trump tasked tech billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency with rooting out and eliminating egregious examples of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending.

As of Monday, DOGE claims to have saved around $165 billion thus far, which equates to slightly more than $1,000 per taxpayer, Breitbart reported.

Of course, some critics will complain that the claimed DOGE savings right now are nowhere near Musk's lofty initial estimates of $1+ trillion, but the savings are still rather substantial and never would have occurred were it not for the efforts of Musk and Trump.

More than $1,000 saved per taxpayer so far

According to the DOGE website, which was last updated on Monday, around $165 billion in wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive spending by the federal government has been identified and eliminated since the start of the second Trump administration.

Those estimated savings come by way of a "Combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions."

Given that there are around 161 million taxpayers in the U.S., that $165 billion in total savings to date works out in theory to be approximately $1,025 in savings per taxpayer.

Providing "receipts" and keeping track of the leading agencies

To help bolster the claims and quiet the naysayers, the DOGE website also provides a "Wall of Receipts" that represent around 30% of the total savings thus far.

Those "receipts" provide examples for approximately $32 billion saved by the termination of nearly 9,500 federal contracts, as much as $37 billion saved by eliminating more than 11,600 federal grants, and roughly $291 million saved by cancelling nearly 600 leases held by the federal government.

The website also tracks the savings by each federal department and agency in a "leaderboard," which currently shows that the top five with the most savings are the Department of Health and Human Services, the General Services Administration, the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Department of Labor.

On the opposite end of the leaderboard with the least amount of savings are the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce.

Trump praises the "amazing job" of Musk and DOGE

During his recent interview with NBC News anchor Kristen Welker, President Trump was asked if Musk's "chainsaw approach" to savings was a threat to the economy or national security, but Trump brushed that off and replied, "Well, he found $160 billion worth of fraud, waste, and abuse. I mean, I think he's done an amazing job."

Welker asserted that Musk had initially predicted that he'd find up to $2 trillion in savings, but Trump quickly interjected, "Well, we're not finished yet."

Seemingly still unsatisfied, the reporter questioned whether the work of DOGE would continue once Musk has stepped back from his quasi-leadership role, to which the president responded, "Sure, he's leaving behind some very brilliant people."

From the start, it was made clear that Musk would never lead DOGE in perpetuity, but was merely brought in to help kickstart what was at least in part his idea to comb through federal spending for expenditures that should be cut, and he has certainly provided the necessary push to get that ball rolling ahead of his planned return to his own businesses in the near future.