Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort to cut trillions in federal spending has doubled its own spending budget in recent days.
The initiative said in late January it had spent $6.75 million, a figure updated to $14.4 million by February 8, according to government records obtained by Fortune.
The new spending was on “anticipated reimbursements from agencies in support of Software Modernization Initiative,” according to the records.
The DOGE effort has set ambitious goals, with Musk suggesting it could cut up to $2 trillion in annual spending, a figure that would represent almost all of the government’s voluntary spending.
While the department has claimed to be saving Americans $1 billion a day, analysis suggests that DOGE’s efforts — much of which have involved canceling existing federal contracts — are hardly making a dent in the overall financial picture of the U.S.
An analysis from The Economist found that federal outlays have been higher the last two months compared to the same period during each of the last two years.
Efforts to scrutinize DOGE’s impact so far have been further complicated by a lack of public information about the group.
A government website meant to capture wasteful spending identified by the administration led to a blank web template until it was shuttered, and the identities and actions of most DOGE employees and volunteers are unknown to the public.
The administration has defended the effort.
“We actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions — we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and to the DOGE website,” Musk said Tuesday. “So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don’t think there’s been — I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.”
DOGE regularly posts updates on its work on X, but these often consist of posts without supporting documentation.
The official DOGE website, meanwhile, is largely an embedded feed of the X account. On its “Savings” page, the site has a message reading, “receipts coming soon, no later than Valentine’s day” with a heart emoji.
Questions about the genuine efficiency of the effort have dogged DOGE since the beginning.
From the beginning, the efficiency plan was duplicative. There’s already a government office dedicated to analyzing government spending, the General Accountability Office, and the Trump administration has removed scores of inspectors general at various agencies that often assist in investigating waste and fraud.
Another source of DOGE savings might be a voluntary buyout the administration has offered millions of federal employees, which was temporarily held up in court until a federal judge lifted a pause on the program.
Other efforts have appeared less impactful on the federal balance sheet, including a push to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, which makes up a miniscule portion of government spending.
Some DOGE moves might end up costing the government more in the long run.
Musk has pushed to end the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned billions of dollars to Americans through enforcement against predatory financial practices.
