Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency claims to be fighting the scourge of government waste and fraud and, this week, DOGE claimed that it had already saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. However, in an ironic twist, it would appear that the claims being made by Musk and DOGE about their own activities appear to be, themselves, fraudulent. Despite recently claiming that it had already saved Americans $55 billion, the information on DOGEs website only accounts for $16 billion, onlookers have noted. Worse, about half of those savings appear to have been attributable to an accounting error. Indeed, amongst the so-called savings that DOGE recently posted about on its site was an alleged $8 billion contract for a diversity program being operated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. However, the New York Times has now reported that the actual cost of the program was $8 million. In other words, it was a thousand times smaller than DOGE had initially claimed it was. The DOGE website was subsequently edited several times, in a series of comical, floundering changes, that sought to correct the recordbut only after the discrepancy was reported by the press. It appears that the original error may not have been DOGEs, as the federal contracting database in which the diversity program appeared originally listed it as an $8 billion program. However, a savvy observer would have known this was an error, given the fact that most government agencies have budgets that are nearly equivalent to such a figure. DOGE appears to have duplicated the error on its site, before repeatedly editing the information. The New York Times breaks down DOGEs subsequent website edits like so: The DOGE website initially included a screenshot from the federal contracting database showing that the contracts value was $8 million, even as the DOGE site listed $8 billion in savings. On Tuesday night, around the time this article was published, DOGE removed the screenshot that showed the mismatch, but continued to claim $8 billion in savings. It added a link to the original, outdated version of the contract worth $8 billion. By Wednesday morning, DOGE had updated its list to show $8 million in savings, though it did not acknowledge the error or explain how it might affect its calculation of total money saved, which remained unchanged. A loss of $8 billion in savings would represent nearly 15 percent of the total savings claimed by DOGE. Even the $8 million is an upper bound on the amount saved by canceling the contract. Since $2.5 million had already been spent on the contract, according to data on USAspending.gov, that suggests that canceling it saved $5.5 million at most. From this, it seems sorta safe to assume that the people running DOGE are either deceptive con artists or morons or both. Indeed, this isnt the first time something like this has happened. Other questionable claims have been made by Musk and DOGE on a routine and ongoing basis, many of which have been easily debunked. Bloomberg notes that while DOGE has promised to upload its work in a digestible and fully transparent manner with clear assumptions, consistent with applicable rules and regulations, their work has been largely shrouded in secrecy and its less-than-optimal accounting raises questions about the reliability of their self-reporting and their level of accountability. In recent weeks, some legal attacks have attempted to slow DOGEs rampage through the federal government, though many of those efforts have run into roadblocks. Last week, 14 state attorneys general sued the White House, alleging that Trump had violated the Constitution by appointing Musk. The litigation asked for a restraining order against DOGE to limit the initiatives destructive scope. However, on Tuesday, federal judge Tanya Chutkan made the decision not to issue the order, claiming thatfor some reasonMusks mass firing of civil servants and hun-like behavior vis-a-vis federal databases did not rise to the legal definition of irreparable harm that such an order required. This, despite the fact that the backers of the new administration have openly stated that irreparable harm is exactly what they intend to inflict upon the government.That said, while Chutkan has denied the restraining order, AGs attached to the case remain optimistic and say they feel good about it overall. The casewhich is ongoingpresents the opportunity to legally investigate what the government is doing with DOGE, they say, and the probe could ultimately reveal whether Trump has violated the constitution via Musks appointment. Musks fingerprints are all over DOGE. Many staffers have previously worked for Musk or his companies, and Musk and Trump have both openly stated that Musk is responsible for leading the initiative. Despite this, White House lawyers recently made the outrageous claim that Musk is not actually in charge of DOGE. Indeed, as part of the legal defense against the state AGs lawsuit, government attorneys claimed that Musk is simply advising the president as a special government employee. Musk has no actual authority to make government decisions himself, Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, recently claimed.If it is true that Musk is an SGE, it would mean that he is beholden to some laws and regulations that its not clear hes following. David Dayden, of The American Prospect, recently made the point that SGEs are only allowed to work a total of 130 days a year, which would mean that Musk would have to leave government by May 30th. Of course, there always seems to be a loophole that allows the Trump administration to get its way. More recently, Musk has begun talking about a DOGE dividend, which he claims would allow DOGE to send the money that the organization has saved directly to the American public. Such gestures seem to suggest that Musk and others running the administration view the American public as a moronic rabble that can be easily manipulated via the spectacle of free money. The proposal is also somewhat reminiscent of Musks legally questionable payments to petition signers during the presidential election. Americans cheering Musks destruction of the government in the name of efficiency likely have a limited understanding of what the government does or how it contributes to the truly efficient operation of the country. This sarcastic tweet sorta says it all: