Elon Musk plans to slash government spending through his new Department of Government Efficiency. Photo / Getty Images
Elon Musk plans to slash government spending through his new Department of Government Efficiency. Photo / Getty Images
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy aim to cut US$2 trillion in state spending through the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk highlighted examples of government waste, including US$500 million on monkeys and US$1.3 billion paid to dead people.
The initiative, tasked by Trump, seeks to dismantle bureaucracy and restructure federal agencies by July 4, 2026.
Elon Musk has suggested he could cut “at least $2 trillion” through his new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, by eradicating “wasteful” spending.
Together with Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential candidate and pharmaceutical billionaire, the world’s richest man has been tasked with slashing state spending, which reached US$6.75 trillion($11.5 trillion) this year, according to Treasury data.
Hailing the department as the “Manhattan Project of our time”, Trump said its mission was to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies”.
He has given the two men until July 4, 2026 – the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – to complete their task.
Musk has said the overhaul will “send shockwaves through the political system”.
The billionaire has already shared what he believes to be some of the more egregious examples of overspending. He has asked for the public’s help identifying more.
$500 million on monkeys
The National Institute for Health (NIH) has allegedly spent US$33 million ($56m) on a firm that runs Monkey Island, a colony of about 3000 rhesus monkeys in South Carolina that are used for animal testing.
According to an annual report looking at government waste by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the agency signed the contract with Alpha Genesis Inc, which cares for the primates before they are shipped to labs around the country.
A separate report from Congresswoman Nancy Mace looking at the island claimed the firm had been paid US$19m this year alone.
The NIH is also alleged to have paid out US$3.7 million in grants for a study on monkeys and gambling.
A further US$12m package is alleged to have helped fund tests on the effects of methamphetamine on monkeys, carried out by the University of Mississippi. Meanwhile, Rand’s report claimed a lab in Florida was given US$477,000 to look into “transgender monkeys” – male primates injected with female hormones.
$1.3b paid to dead people
Dead people mistakenly received US$1.3 billion from the Government because of out-of-date records, an investigation found.
The report from RealClear investigations said the IRS, Veterans Affairs (VA) department and Medicare were all affected.
In one instance, Raymond Kenneth Musgrove from Washington was charged with impersonating a Vietnam veteran for more than 25 years to collect his disability and healthcare benefits, according to the Washington Times.
Despite allegedly having his allowance cut off twice – once after the VA found the real veteran’s tombstone – prosecutors claim Musgrove was able to restart the instalments, collecting US$825,000 before his indictment in February.
A separate report found US$38m in pandemic loans went to dead people last year.
The study – published by the pandemic response accountability committee, a special taskforce authorised by Congress to track Covid payments – found in total US$1.3m went to 30 individuals who had been dead for at least a year.
John Hart, chief executive of Open the Books, a government waste watchdog, told the NY Post: “The Treasury Department has a do-not-pay list. These people should all be on it. But there is no cross-checking between the agencies paying out and the Treasury.”
Scammers used the faces of Barbie dolls to make fake IDs . Photo / 123rf
Covid relief from Barbie dolls
Although the pandemic ended last year, official documents show the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) made about US$19.8b available for its response to Covid in the 2024 fiscal year, which ran from October 2023 until last month.
The figure represents about 40% of the agency’s entire outlay of US$47.6b for the year.
A further US$15 million of NIH funding was spent on security for Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s former top public health official, despite him being retired, reports suggest.
Fauci received a publicly funded chauffeur and a dedicated security team of US marshals, according to Open The Books.
In a separate incident, scammers used the faces of Barbie dolls to make fake IDs to receive cheques from the government’s largest Covid relief programme.
The scammers benefited from a small part of the estimated US$80b in fraud linked to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to the Messenger.
A Russian experiment putting cats on treadmills was funded as part of US$1.3b in government funding funnelled to rival powers, a report found.
Between 2017-22, government payments amounting to US$870m were sent to entities in Russia and a further US$490m paid to Chinese organisations, according to a spending analysis by Joni Ernst, the Iowa senator, and Open the Book, the non-profit transparency group.
As part of the package, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) allegedly wired more than US$770,000 to a state-run lab in Russia to perform experiments on cats.
The Pavlov Institute forced the cats to walk on treadmills, implanted electrodes into their spines and removed parts of their brains before eventually killing and dissecting them, it is claimed. The grant was terminated in 2022.
Cartoons for China
The Department of Defence also allegedly poured US$51.6m into China, of which US$6m was allocated for tech support of the military’s deployment and distribution command software.
Of that sum, US$100,000 was also allegedly used to promote gender equality awareness through a series of New Yorker magazine cartoons.
Prisoners received US$171m in unemployment benefits and social security last year because they were counted as free, out-of-work citizens, the NY Post reported.
The payments, which prisoners are not eligible for, were only a fraction of the total US$236b wasted by the government on improper payments, according to the Economic Policy Innovation Centre.
The payments, costing US$50b more than the budget for the entire US Army, are those sent to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason.
Medicare and Medicaid received US$101b. A further US$43b was mistakenly paid out in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which is offered to people who have lost work because of Covid.
Ecuadorian drag queens
The State Department gave US$20,600 to a cultural centre in Ecuador to host drag performances in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
According to Fox News, the grant was used to fund three workshops, 12 drag performances and a two-minute documentary.
The project, which took place between September 2022 and August 2023, came amid reports the State Department last year requested more than US$86m for DEI programmes.
Joe Biden introduced an executive order in 2021 instructing employers to prioritise DEI when hiring.
A report by Open The Books this month found the HHS had spent more than US$400m on DEI initiatives under the Biden administration. This included 294 staff employed to oversee DEI, costing the agency US$38.7m a year.
Meanwhile, more than US$16m was handed over to consulting firms and third parties last year for diversity training across federal government departments, according to the Daily Caller.
Empty buildings
Federal agencies are using less than a quarter of the office space in their headquarters, a Public Buildings Reform Board report found.
The General Services Administration spends around US$2b a year to operate and maintain offices for the 24 government agencies and a further US$5b to lease them.
The worst offending department was the agency for global media, where on average only 72 employees a day turned up at the Washington DC office, despite the building having capacity to seat 3431 people.
The Environmental Protection Agency has spent US$620,000 on guns. Photo / 123rf
Guns for the EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency has spent US$620,000 on guns and ammunition in recent years to enforce green laws, a report found.
Analysis by Open The Books found between 2018-22, the department spent nearly US$400,000 on ammunition. This came after paying for 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 600 guns between 2010-17.
The department also allegedly forked out US$100,000 on body armour, while further expenditures were made for “optical sighting and ranging equipment”, “night vision equipment” and “security vehicles”.
The agency has its own criminal enforcement programme, which has a US$70m budget. Its goals include “protecting communities with environmental justice concerns” and curbing illegal sales of pesticides.
It also has a US$90m budget for its office of Homeland Security, which it says provides “systemic preparation” for climate and environment-related threats.
The Department of Defence ruined US$169m of military equipment by leaving it outside, reports suggest.
An audit by the department’s inspector general last year found officials had stored 80 gas turbine engines, valued at US$89.16m, outside rather than in a shed, leaving them to suffer water damage.
The same mistake was made with 135 hydraulic transmissions, worth US$12.6m, with officials claiming there was not enough space inside the shed.
A further 117,534 tank tracks were left outside exposed to the elements, despite instructions saying they should be protected, causing an estimated US$68.29m in damage.
Tax dodging in the IRS
An audit commissioned by Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and published this year found between October 2021 to October 2023, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees owed nearly US$50m in unpaid taxes.
While 96% of employees were compliant with tax rules, more than 5800 IRS and contractor employees were overdue on payments.
Some 20 of the agency’s employees who failed to pay on time were sacked.
Senator Ernst said: “While the IRS warns, ‘tax evasion is a serious crime punishable by imprisonment, fines, and the imposition of civil penalties’, the agency is rewarding its own tax dodgers with pay cheques and lavish benefits.”
Post Malone performing at Auckland's Outerfields at Western Springs. Photo / Tom Grut
Struggling musicians
Megastars including Post Malone, Lil Wayne and Chris Brown received about $200 million in taxpayer money under government pandemic relief efforts.
The Small Business Administration propped up the incomes of the multimillionaire artists through its Covid-era grants, according to a report last year from Insider.
Introduced in 2020, the funding was distributed to businesses with fewer than five employees and helped save thousands of entertainment venues and operators, an SBA spokesman told the outlet.
According to the report, Malone, Wayne and Brown received US$28.5m between them.
