Key Facts

• Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was set up to reduce US government spending.
• Doge claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.
• The agency's main focus includes cancelling contracts, grants and leases from prior administrations, battling fraud, and reducing government staffing.
• Doge initially promised to cut "$2 trillion" from the federal government budget, later reducing this target to $150bn by the end of the 2026 financial year.
• As of April 20th, the running total of estimated savings on Doge's website was $160bn, with less than 40% of this figure divided into individual savings.
• BBC Verify questioned some of Doge's large claimed savings, noting a lack of supporting evidence and some accounting errors.
• Doge's largest individual claimed saving of $2.9bn came from cancelling a contract initiated under President Biden in 2023 to create a Texas facility for unaccompanied migrant children.