Trump, Musk so far provide scant evidence for their claims of government fraud

President Donald Trump mentioned he’ll present particulars Thursday of what he and Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) declare are billions of {dollars} of wasteful and fraudulent authorities spending.

“I’ll learn to you a number of the names that a whole lot of thousands and thousands and even billions of {dollars} have been given to,” the president mentioned in a information convention Wednesday.

Within the weeks since Trump’s inauguration, he and Musk have made claims from the Oval Workplace and on social media about particular applications reminiscent of catastrophe reduction for states, lodging for migrants in cities and that 150-year-olds are receiving Social Safety funds. Nonetheless, what few particulars have been offered have been imprecise, unsupported and typically false.

Actually, Musk admitted Tuesday that a few of its claims is perhaps “incorrect.”

Throughout his first information convention since beginning DOGE, Musk backtracked on a declare that $50 million was spent by the federal authorities to offer condoms to Gaza and Hamas. White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt first made that declare at a White Home briefing final month and was unfold vast by Trump, Musk and Republican lawmakers.

Actually, the condoms have been despatched to a province in Mozambique named Gaza as a part of an HIV prevention measure.

“A number of the issues I say could also be incorrect and needs to be corrected. No one’s batting 1.000,” Musk instructed reporters within the Oval Workplace. “All of us make errors, however we’ll act to rapidly appropriate any errors.”

Musk claimed that he and DOGE have been “totally public” with “all of our actions,” however a lot of DOGE’s exercise throughout quite a few federal businesses has been realized by reporting, response from authorities workers affected by DOGE’s actions, or when DOGE and company heads shut down authorities workplaces and despatched workers house.

The updates that DOGE and Musk present on his X social media platform are sometimes imprecise and infrequently do not include documentation.

On Thursday, the billionaire reposted to his 217.5 million followers on X a declare that Reuters was awarded $9 million by the Division of Protection for a “social engineering” program and referred to as it a “rip-off.” Trump handed the declare alongside on his Fact Social platform, posting “GIVE BACK THE MONEY NOW!”

Nonetheless, public information show the contract was awarded in 2018, throughout Trump’s first time period, to Thompson Reuters Particular Providers division, not its information group, following a request from the earlier yr from a Division of Protection company for analysis on “automated protection social engineering assaults.”

Washington Submit tech reporter Drew Harwell was one of many first to level out the specifics of the Reuters contracts Thursday morning in Bluesky posts.

Musk promised DOGE would use “most transparency” in its actions, even earlier than Trump was elected in November. He mentioned it will do weekly “DOGE casts” on X and replace its Doge.gov web site with its exercise.

On the time of Tuesday’s Oval Workplace information convention when Musk was requested about transparency, the location confirmed solely a brand and a slogan, however a day later, it was populated with posts from the DOGE X account, a laws web page that featured a bar graph of “company guidelines created by unelected” and a “workforce” web page that listed headcount for federal staff.

The web site cites its “sources” as largely publicly accessible OPM knowledge.

The underside of the web page options the next discover by DOGE acknowledging “there are possible some errors or omissions. We’ll proceed to attempt for max accuracy over time.”

When requested Tuesday to speak in regards to the specifics of the fraud he discovered, Musk alleged there have been individuals receiving Social Safety advantages who have been 150 years outdated. Musk didn’t present any extra particulars or specifics on how he discovered these individuals’s Social Safety info.

Regardless of Musk’s firms SpaceX and Tesla being awarded at the very least $18 billion in federal contracts over the previous decade and SpaceX successful greater than $17 million value of contracts since 2015, Musk didn’t squarely deal with his potential conflicts of curiosity with the federal government on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, a procurement forecast doc launched by the State Division mentioned Musk’s Telsa is forecast to win a $400 million contract to supply “armored Teslas” to the State Division later this yr.

The contract, which was modified in December and scheduled to be awarded in September, is anticipated to final for 5 years, based on the procurement forecast doc. Nonetheless, the company the following day up to date its procurement forecast doc, merely describing the procurement requirement as “armored electrical automobiles” as an alternative.

Requested by ABC Information’ Rachel Scott if there have been checks and balances in place to make sure that Musk’s firms aren’t benefitting from his entry, he mentioned that every one of DOGE’s actions are “totally public.”

“So, for those who see something you say like, ‘Wait a second. Hey, you realize what that does? That looks like perhaps that is, you realize, that there is a battle there,'” he mentioned. It’s not like persons are going to be shy about saying that. They’re going to say it instantly.”

Musk didn’t elaborate on the place such a grievance can be publicized or whether or not he would publicly acknowledge it.

He mentioned that DOGE’s transparency will construct belief.

“After which you possibly can see, am I doing one thing that advantages considered one of my firms or not? It’s very apparent,” he mentioned.