‘Minister’ Elon Musk promised to save $2 trillion in budget but ended up costing an additional $135 billion just because of a habit at Tesla

Elon Musk is leaving DOGE, leaving behind a mess of lawsuits, settlements, and a promise that is only 8% fulfilled.

The New York Times (NYT) reported that Elon Musk once pledged to save the US budget $2 trillion when joining the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, this number was reduced to $1 trillion and up to now, DOGE has only announced that it has saved the budget $150 billion.

That’s just 15% of the $1 trillion target and 8% of the original $2 trillion plan. Even compared to the nearly $7 trillion federal budget for fiscal year 2024, it’s a pittance.

Worse, the NYT reported that the federal budget also spent an additional $135 billion on the damages caused by DOGE when it laid off and closed agencies, including compensation, rehiring costs, and losses caused by personnel fluctuations.

The main reason is that instead of firing according to regulations, DOGE demanded immediate dismissal just like what Elon Musk did at Tesla or Twitter, creating unnecessary lawsuits and compensation.

135 billion USD

The layoffs, rehires, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of federal workers will cost the US budget an additional $135 billion in fiscal year 2025, according to the nonprofit PPS.

Data from a Yale University study shows that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) alone will have to spend $8.5 billion to cut 22,000 employees initiated by DOGE. The total number of civil servants laid off could even reach 32,000.

There is no concrete estimate yet of the damage caused by DOGE’s proposed layoff programs. Of the approximately 200 lawsuits and appeals related to the government’s agenda, at least 30 involve DOGE.

“Not only is Elon Musk grossly overstating the amount of budget savings he has achieved, he is also failing to account for the exponentially greater waste he is creating,” said PPS CEO Max Stier.

The NYT said that DOGE’s firing would not have been so costly if not for Elon Musk’s habit of firing employees at Tesla and Twitter.

Federal law and previous government shutdowns would have provided Elon Musk with a well-rounded firing process, but the billionaire opted for the same quick, aggressive methods he used at Twitter after acquiring the company in 2022.

“The law is very clear,” said expert Jeri Buchholz, who has worked in public service, handling hiring and firing at seven federal agencies for 30 years.

DOGE’s cuts have targeted at least 12% of the 2.4 million civilian employees in the federal workforce.

But ironically, according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the US government had to rehire ¼ of the 100,000 federal employees who were laid off in the first round.

Most of these cases were ruled by the courts to be unlawful dismissals, requiring the government to pay compensation, along with full pay for the period of leave.

There was even a case where DOGE had to apologize for mistakenly firing experts involved in nuclear programs.

Then came the 10,000-person layoff at the Department of Health and Human Services that wiped out most of the physician team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose work has always been supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

In a recent poll, about 58% of those surveyed said they disapproved of Elon Musk’s handling of DOGE’s work and 60% disapproved of the billionaire himself, the NYT reported.

“We will make mistakes”

In February 2025, Elon Musk had to apologize after the Court found that the billionaire’s desire to abolish the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was unconstitutional.

“We will make mistakes,” billionaire Elon Musk admitted.

However, these are not the only mistakes that Elon Musk and the DOGE Set have made.

Returning to the nuclear experts’ mistaken firing, of the 130 people fired, at least 27 were engineers, 13 were program or project analysts, 12 were program or project managers, and five were physicists or scientists.

Notably, four of these employees are experts in handling the safe transportation of nuclear materials, and half a dozen work in the agency unit that builds reactors for nuclear submarines.

“Those are jobs that are very hard to fill, because people can make as much or more money working for the plant or lab itself,” said former National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) head Jill Hruby.

Sharing the same view, PPS CEO Stier said that many good experts refuse to work in the private sector to serve the government, but when they are dissatisfied, it is easy to move to other better jobs and difficult to re-hire.

Not stopping there, DOGE’s targeting of 220,000 probationary civil servants is also considered flawed because many of them are experts recruited to replace those about to retire.

The cost of recruiting and training these experts is up to 10,000 USD for an office worker and more than 1 million USD for an elite expert.

On March 13, 2025, about 24,000 probationary civil servants at nearly 20 agencies were fired by DOGE, but the Court deemed this illegal and ordered them to be rehired.

However, the White House has appealed and the legal battle is still ongoing.

Ironically, while waiting for the verdict, the government still has to pay these people an average salary of $106,000 even though they stay home.

Apparently, Elon Musk is in trouble with DOGE but instead of staying to solve it, the billionaire returned to run Tesla which is in poor business condition, leaving a mess for the government.