DOGE head Elon Musk announces the cancelation of 20 government contracts

By 
 February 4, 2025

Prior to taking office, President Donald Trump tasked Tesla CEO Elon Musk with heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an organization dedicated to rooting out waste.

Musk appears to be delivering on that mandate, with the latest example coming on this week when DOGE announced that multiple contracts had been canceled. 

Twenty government consulting contracts have been scrapped

According to Breitbart, the information was made public on Monday via a social media post from DOGE's official X account.

"This morning, 20 consulting contracts, mostly focused on 'strategic communication' and 'executive coaching,' were terminated for immediate savings of $26mm," it read. 

Musk later chimed in with a post on his personal X account, stating, "Another description for these types of payments is 'money laundering.'"

More money saved by canceling leases and DEI programs

The revelation regarding canceled contracts came days after DOGE announced that it had saved taxpayers more than $44 million by ending the leases on 22 underutilized buildings.

However, Breitbart noted that DOGE's biggest achievements when it comes to saving money have been achieved by axing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

"Through 1/29/2025, 85 DEIA related contracts totaling ~$1B have been terminated within the Dept. of Ed, GSA, OPM, EPA, DoL, Treasury, DoD, USDA, Commerce, DHS, VA, HHS, State, NSF, NRC, NLRB, PBGC, USAID, RRB, SSA, SBA, BLM, CFPB, NPS, and NOAA," an X post from last week read.

Meanwhile, Musk recently generated headlines when he suggested that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) needs to go.

Musk says Trump "agreed that we should shut it down"

According to NBC News, Musk made the recommendation during a Sunday audio-only appearance on X, stating, "With regard to the USAID stuff, I went over [it] with [President Trump] in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down."

"I actually checked with him a few times [and] said, 'Are you sure?'" Musk said of Trump before adding that the president had responded positively.

NBC News pointed out that Musk's remarks came the same day that Trump criticized USAID while speaking with reporters at Joint Base Andrews.

"It's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out, USAID run by radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out, and then we’ll make a decision," Trump complained.

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