Inside the DOGE department: A former staffer exposes its contradictions - “we didn’t find any examples of fraud”

Elon Musk officially left the Trump administration and his role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in May, just four months after initially taking it up.

How much money has the DOGE saved?

Tasked with lowering U.S. government spending and cutting jobs, the DOGE axed or bought out 250,000 workers from almost every federal department, reduced staffing and slashed grants from environmental agencies, but failed to make as much cost-cutting progress as Musk had pledged.

The Tesla boss initially stated he hoped to save $2 trillion a year, a figure he later halved. On its website, the DOGE claims to have saved $175 billion by May 29, a figure which has been disputed in an analysis conducted by the BBC.

Elon Musk’s death threats

A lack of transparency is one of the criticisms that has been aimed at the DOGE and Musk, who says he has received death threats and been the subject of lawsuits since taking up his position. On top of that, the 53-year-old’s net worth is estimated to have dropped by $100 billion, while Tesla’s profits have plummeted.

Speaking in an interview with PBS News’ White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López, former DOGE staffer Sahil Lavingia described his experience of working in the Department of Veterans Affairs. After 55 days, the software engineer was let go after speaking to the media.

Ex-staffer explains DOGE experience

The ex-staffer’s time at the DOGE didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts, admitting “I didn’t know exactly what I was brought in to do”.

Lavingia’s tasks ultimately included cutting contracts with federal government contractors and helping reduce the work force by 15 percent (which he claims the DOGE had no authority to do). Additionally, he says he was also brought in “to find waste, fraud, and abuse, these sorts of things”.

During his short spell working with the DOGE, Lavingia says, “we didn’t find any examples of fraud” within the VA. He also spoke of his frustration at not being granted time to develop software to help speed up veterans’ disability claims, which take 133 days to process at present.

“It was unclear who was in charge”

While Lavingia believes the DOGE is making good progress on avoiding overspending on big federal I.T. contracts, he painted a general picture of disorganisation and contradiction, which he believes may have been the reason for Musk’s departure.

“To be honest, even when I was there, it was unclear who was in charge. At the end of the day, I guess Trump is in charge.

“But I think the DOGE will continue to do what it was doing, which, frankly, to me wasn’t that exciting.

“I guess there is this reduction in force that’s taking place over the federal government that the VA has said that they’re going to participate in. It was moving incredibly slow. I think, at VA specifically, more people were hired than fired during my tenure.

“I wish them the best of luck, but they just don’t have a lot of resources to do what they set out to do in the beginning."

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