A US watchdog has found that some of the savings claimed by Doge, the body set up under President Trump to cut federal spending, were overstated, incorrect, or unsupported by evidence. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) review examined Doge's "Wall of Receipts", which listed $110bn in reported savings across government contracts, grants and leases, and concluded that the body had failed to provide sufficient information to verify how the vast majority of these figures were calculated.

The GAO said Doge could not substantiate the method used to calculate 96% of its reported savings, and highlighted specific errors, including 108 of 264 leases claimed as terminations that were already ending before Doge existed, accounting for around $15.3m of a $53.5m total. It also found a claimed $1.7bn saving from cancelling a defence department IT contract that was never actually terminated. Doge, led initially by Elon Musk before he departed in May 2025, had promised savings of up to $2tn a year but by its own account reached only $214bn; it was disbanded last month, with the White House saying employees had followed ethics and disclosure rules.