What’s happening: Billionaire Elon Musk met with officials from the Treasury Department over the weekend, where they allegedly guessed around $50 billion per year — or $1 billion per week — worth of “entitlements payments to individuals with no [Social Security Number]…is unequivocal and obvious fraud.”

  • Catch up: A federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury Department payment records, which handle 90 percent of federal payments. The order follows a Justice Department agreement to limit access to two "special government employees" within DOGE, with read-only permissions.

  • Pushback: Top Trump officials like Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller criticized the judge’s ruling, with the latter calling it "an assault on the very idea of democracy itself.”

New changes: DOGE and the Treasury agreed that going forward, all outgoing government payments will be required to have a categorization code, ensuring financial audits are possible and accurate. Additionally, every payment must include a rationale in the comment field, which will provide a basic explanation for the expenditure — a simple change that could vastly improve oversight.

Sniffing out corruption: When asked why the Treasury Department never acted on tackling the mass fraud in entitlements payments, Musk responded, “Everything at Treasury was geared towards complain [sic] minimization.” With fewer people complaining about not receiving payments, the Treasury allegedly decided to keep over-paying, even with suspected fraud.

What’s next: President Donald Trump expressed confidence that Musk will uncover "billions … hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and abuse” in the Pentagon, which boasts a budget of nearly $900 billion.

  • More: Trump also said Musk would investigate the Department of Education, and DOGE has already started targeting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Why it matters: Nothing like DOGE — an independent and powerful oversight agency run by the world’s richest man under the direction of the president — has ever happened before. Musk is working overtime to audit bloated federal agencies, tackling inefficiencies and corruption to potentially save taxpayers billions.

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Terri Galloway1 year ago

I for one am tickled pink someone has the vision and fortitude to "go big"! Fraud and abuse of tax payer money has been a complaint for decades and decades. Many have blown a gentle breeze on the problem, but thank goodness President Trump has sent a Cat 5 hurricane!! Can't wait to watch tne rebuilding of these cash cows into efficient entities that serve Americans and balance our national budget! By the way, love your oublication! Crack on!!!

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Jim Harmon1 year ago

It boggles the mind to think about how much and how long USAID has funded ridiculous projects abroad, that ultimately worked against our own safety and security. I applaud Musk for his patriotism and willingness to help the country "get right." Abuse of taxpayer dollars is so blatant that we've become accustomed to it. "Oh, well! What you going to do?" I'm excited to see the future!

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Geri Gaby1 year ago

ITS ABOUT TIME!!!

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Jim Ahern1 year ago

What Musk is doing has been long overdue, but at least the process has finally begun. As we've already seen and completely expected the Left (D.S.) will stop at nothing to shut it down and protect their criminal empire by way of criminal (D.S.) judges attempting to derail or at the very least wrap these measures up in the corrupt legal system for the foreseeable future. This is my concern and what plagued Trump's first term and it's of course happening again.. I think we all understand that to truly clean-up the filth in D.C. and the agencies and institutions that walk hand in hand with these parasitic individuals you need to have full and unadulterated accountability, plain and simple. The fact is nothing matters unless these vile individuals and groups are held to the fire for their heinous crimes against our country. They will rinse, wash and repeat the same crimes come 2029 if we don't eliminate the scourge now. This is the only path to a true Golden Age for America..

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sharon smith1 year ago

American taTxpayers have been waiting for genrations for an event like this. It is long overdue and should turn our red line into black within Trump's 4-yr term. For far too long, human nature, basically greedy, has been finding many ways to enrich itself on the backs of the middle class. I'm feeling vindicated that my suspiciouns of government corruption are finally being uncovered, which will hopefully put fear into the hearts of future governmental thugs. Let's all think, "for the good of America"...

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Patricia Kelly1 year ago

Hurrah! I've wondered for years why government officials show no respect for the people who work to pay required taxes. Thank God we have someone as brilliant and committed as Musk to work through this. Thanks to President Trump for taking this on. it's past time.

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John Darsey1 year ago

I've been waiting my entire adult life for someone to tackle government bloat. Back in the 70's we first started hearing about $500 hammers and $1000 toilet seats! Trump campaigned on this and many other issues and it's SO great to see it begin!! Now if only the obstructionist party would just pipe down and allow the future to happen...

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Shellybo Lewis1 year ago

Woe to him who dishonestly makes wealth for his house, to place his nest on high, to escape the grasp of disaster! You have planned shame for your house by wiping out many peoples and sinning against your own country. For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will answer them from the woodwork. Habakkuk 2:9-11

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claude chase1 year ago

The leftist liberal democrat leadership and their deep state activists are howling about how no one voted for Elon to view sensitive data - but they fail to tell us who voted for the people that have been doing so up until now, the very ones who were in charge and supporting all the fraud that Musk is uncovering. Because none of us voted for those swamp creatures who've been funneling billions of our tax payor funds to terrorists and other unnamed receiverships ether !

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Mick Noel1 year ago

If these revelations prove to be legitimate, my question to Republicans is this, "(1)were the Republicans in Congress aware of all this and therefore complicit in perpetuating them, or (2) unaware and therefore derelict in their duty to represent and protect the citizens that elected them?"

I am a registered Republican for decades but deeply troubled by the failure of the Republican party to work hard to surface and put an end to fraud and abuse in our Federal Government. Frankly, our Federal government is disgracefully negligent in every department. There is probably no effective accountability short of term limits and a dramatically smaller federal budget.

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KD Brandt1 year ago

Well put!!

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Michael Jones1 year ago

These Federal Judges need to be stopped. Those unelected, incompetent, far left activist Judges are halting everything that needs to be done and should have been done years ago. I wonder just how many of them are on the "kickback" payroll? Roughly one billion dollars a week to individuals with no Social Security Numbers???. In uncovering the fraud, where does the prosecution and jail time for these thieves come in? It makes me want to start a tax revolt.

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KD Brandt1 year ago

Trump recently said in an interview that the corrupt court judges are doing this to buy time for ‘crooked people’ (his words) to hide evidence.

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Stephen Winsor1 year ago

I applaud DOGE's efforts to expose and stop fraud, waste and abuse with taxpayer money. Expect the deep state creature to rear its ugly head and start fighting back. It could get ugly. I for one welcome the chance to finally slay the deep state and the corruption.

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Doug Ebbecke1 year ago

Over spending and over paying for just about everything that the government is involved has been going on for a long time. I saw it when I was in the service in the late ‘60’s. Guess spending others money is easy when you didn’t have to do anything to get it. DOGE is the best thing to happen in DC in a very long time. Sad part is, that it was even needed and the elected representatives of the taxpayers allowed the waste its finding. Appears they really weren’t looking out for taxpayers. Thankful for the current trend by DOGE and it being put in place!

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Ann FitzGerald1 year ago

It’s great, but I want more details about what is going on at the consumer financial protection bureau and why it needs to be curtailed. I do like that this bureau capped the late fees and overdraft fees. But I’m willing to listen to arguments against such government control. I am sure there are good reasons to do away with this bureau, but I would like to know what they are in order to defend the action. I looked on X and did not find many details as to the wasteful spending at CFPB. Sorry about repeating myself a bit. I don’t have time to write carefully at the moment.

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Roger Dobbins1 year ago

I'm glad we finally have a President who wants to uncover fraud and wrong payments instead of ignoring the problem and simply repeating the "need more taxes" phrase. I think DOGE should speed up the process.

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KD Brandt1 year ago

This is so great! The citizens are taking our country back with a great leader. This is exactly why they tried everything in their ‘bag’ to try to stop President Trump. The Democrats just keep digging themselves a deeper hole by trying to fight against finding corruption. Everything they say is ‘projection’ The last four years, hopefully, cemented their place in the ash heap of History!!

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Scott Connell1 year ago

It's crazy that high ranking ex-federal employees get to keep their EXPENSIVE security clearances. What company would let an ex-employee keep their security clearance - none!

DOGE will be able to trace millions of dollars of treasury money that was kick-back to members of congress. That's what members of congress really fear the most! Can you imagine what DOGE will find when they get to Medicare and Social Security??? How many millions of dead people are still collecting SS???

Remember gang, work longer hours and don't retire until 70 to help pay for this corruption!

And where's main stream media - see to evil, hear no evil, say no evil....crickets..

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Monty Mickle1 year ago

Long overdue! National debt has to be resolved. Has Department of Education made the country more literate? Have government programs alleviated poverty?

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A Riojas1 year ago

Yay!