"Genius" DOGE Hackers Are Disastrously Bad at Math

MAGA Conservatives have been doing victory laps about "owning the libs" as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency claimed a savings of $8 billion on a terminated contract this week—but it was actually worth just $8 million.

That single error represented about 15 percent of the total $55 billion savings DOGE has claimed it made to date. But the $55 billion claim was also apparently bogus: a set of “receipts” posted on its new website totaled just a quarter of $55 billion, even when you include the incorrect $8 billion.

These inconsistencies, in addition to the slew of contracts listed as having a savings of $0, have called DOGE’s accounting into question as Musk keeps falsely claiming he has saved Americans tens of billions more than what his own department touts.

DOGE’s $8 billion mistake (which is a mistake at best, and a lie at worst) was first pointed out by The New York Times, which theorized the mistake may have come about because past versions of the since-canceled contract on the Federal Procurement Data System had incorrectly stated it was for $8 billion.

The contract in question was for ICE and was to be spread out over six years. Despite the initial typo, it was clear to anyone literate and with basic critical thinking skills, that the contract was being paid out to total only $8 million—evidenced by its first two-and-a-half years costing the federal government just $2.5 million.

If the contract had actually been for $8 billion, the contract for ICE’s “office of diversity and civil rights” would have been about the same as the entire annual budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—once again making it obvious for anyone with half a brain cell that this was an obvious miscalculation.

That's not the only dodgy math on the DOGE site. Many have noted that DOGE has been adding the full value of a contract into its total “savings” even if the majority of the contract had already been paid out and will not be recuperated.

The ICE contract, for example, now lists a total savings of $8 million. That is not accurate, as it was canceled midway through completion and just $5.5 million was saved. While that difference may appear minimal alone, there are dozens—if not hundreds—of similar instances of this in the pawn shop math contracts listed on DOGE’s site.

DOGE is also claiming credit for two office closures that were announced when Joe Biden was still president. DOGE’s site claims the latter location was a “True Termination - Agency Closed Office.” No other details are offered. Those centers’ approximate closing dates—as being sometime in 2025—were announced on Aug. 1 before DOGE existed but were still included as a combined $780,308 in DOGE savings.

Man, I bet this isn't the first time these guys have lied to make numbers larger.