Coverage spread: 2 sources — 2 center
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- The GAO found DOGE’s claimed $110 billion in savings from contracts, grants and leases contained significant errors and lacked reliable supporting evidence.
- Both sources report the estimates were flagged as inaccurate or unsupported, undermining confidence in DOGE’s public ‘Wall of Receipts’ figures.
- The finding comes from an official GAO report released Thursday.
Where they differ
- CNBC details specific discrepancies, including that 2,503 of 13,476 claimed contract terminations never actually occurred and that claimed lease savings of $113 million were actually only $53.5 million.
- CNBC includes the political context, noting the report was requested by Democratic Senators Gary Peters and Richard Blumenthal and quoting Peters’ sharp criticism of DOGE as ‘slapdash and deceptive.’
- CNBC notes DOGE did not cooperate with GAO’s requests for information, a detail not present in The Hill’s shorter summary.
- The Hill’s brief text emphasizes simply that the figures were ‘incorrect or lack evidence,’ without the contract-by-contract or lease-by-lease specifics CNBC provides.
A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday found that the $110 billion in federal savings claimed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, showcased on its online “Wall of Receipts,” could not be verified and contained significant errors. The GAO said thousands of contracts DOGE claimed to have terminated were never actually canceled, and savings from lease cuts were overstated by more than half.
What exactly did the GAO find wrong with DOGE’s numbers?
The GAO examined the $110 billion in savings DOGE attributed to canceled federal contracts, grants and leases, checking those claims against official federal databases. Of the 13,476 contracts DOGE said it had terminated, GAO found no termination action had actually been taken on 2,503 of them. On leases, DOGE claimed $113 million in savings from cutting 264 leases, but GAO calculated the real figure at $53.5 million — less than half what was advertised. GAO also found that roughly 108 of those 264 leases were already in the process of being terminated before DOGE even existed, meaning DOGE couldn’t fairly claim credit for canceling them.
Beyond the $110 billion GAO specifically reviewed, DOGE’s website claimed a broader total of $215 billion in cuts once additional spending categories were included, though GAO’s audit focused on the contracts, grants and leases portion. The agency said DOGE’s site suffers from “issues limiting the transparency and reliability” of its reported figures.
Did DOGE cooperate with the investigation?
No. The GAO said DOGE did not respond to its requests for information or interviews during the review, leaving auditors to rely solely on comparing DOGE’s public claims against independent federal data sources. The review covered the period from January 20, 2025, when President Trump took office, through July 7, 2026 — three days after DOGE announced on social media that it was winding down operations.
Who requested this review, and what are they saying?
The report was requested by Senate Democrats Gary Peters of Michigan and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and its investigations subcommittee, respectively. Peters said in a statement that while “everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government,” DOGE amounted to “a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government’s ability to serve them.” As of publication, Musk and the White House had not responded to requests for comment on the findings.
What is the GAO recommending?
GAO recommended that DOGE’s website prominently warn visitors that its data has quality problems and other limitations, and that it should not be treated as a reliable source of information. The recommendation effectively asks for a disclaimer on the “Wall of Receipts” rather than a correction of the underlying figures, since GAO could not get DOGE’s cooperation to reconcile the discrepancies directly.
Why does this matter?
DOGE was launched with the stated goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending and was central to Trump administration claims of shrinking government waste. It also drove sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs, often with little advance notice to the agencies affected. The GAO’s findings add to a body of independent scrutiny suggesting DOGE’s public claims outpaced its actual results, raising questions about how much of the disruption to federal agencies and their workforces actually translated into real, verifiable savings for taxpayers.
How do the two outlets’ accounts compare?
CNBC provides the fuller account, laying out the specific contract and lease discrepancies, the review’s time frame, the senators’ request, and Peters’ full quote, while also noting Musk and the White House did not respond to its request for comment. The Hill’s available text is a brief summary that flags the same core finding — that DOGE’s claimed figures were inaccurate or unsupported by evidence — without going into the contract and lease specifics or the political response captured by CNBC.
Sources
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