Elon Musk has laid bare the true extent of fraud and waste within the American government, in an eye-opening interview with Joe Rogan.
Musk has served as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) since it was founded in January, though the official administrator is Amy Gleason.
The agency seeks to carry out spending cuts, eliminate waste and modernise federal technology and governance.
Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast last Friday, the world’s richest man and senior advisor to US President Donald Trump highlighted the wasteful use of American funds.
Rogan asked the Tesla CEO: “The size of it when you first started investigating it…when you first got in, how much of it was shocking, just the size of it all?”
Musk replied: “Small decisions result in multi-billion dollar outcomes, so there was a case where one person was getting $1.9billion sent to their NGO, which basically got formed a year ago and had no prior activity.”
Musk continued to explain that tens of thousands, if not millions, of NGOs are allegedly being used to generate money.
He continued to explain: “The whole NGO thing is a nightmare and it's a misnomer because if you have a government-funded non-governmental organisation, you’re simply a government organisation. It’s an oxymoron.
“Government-funded NGOs are ways to fund things that would be illegal if it was the government but is somehow made legal if it’s sent to a so-called non-profit.
“But people then cash out these non-profits and become very wealthy. They pay themselves enormous funds through these non-profits.
“It’s a gigantic scam. Maybe the biggest scam ever.”
MORE ELON MUSK:
Musk continued by outlining the “real issue” was with the Budget deficit which according to the Doge website, increased from $984.4billion in 2019, to $1.83trillion in 2024 - an increase of 85.9 per cent.
Musk then went on to highlight “the fundamental weakness in the government is that the various government databases don't talk to each other.
“They do, but very poorly. In a very limited way. So the way the system gets exploited is by taking advantage of the poor communication between the databases in the government.
“To give you an example in the Treasury, the main payment computers (PAM) that’s responsible for $5trillion a year or roughly $1billion an hour.
“We’re looking at these payments and they have no categorisation code and no description on the payment. Basically an untraceable blank cheque.”
Musk then outlined one of Doge’s victories on the matter, claiming his recommendation to the treasury and federal reserve was to introduce mandatory categorisation codes and explanations.
He continued: “We're not judging the quality of the explanation but there should be some explanation for what the payment is above ‘nothing’.
“That’s a radical change to the system that’s being implemented down. My guess is that saves $100billion a year.”
When then asked where that money was going, Musk couldn’t give an answer.
He said: “Well this is where you get into the grey boundary between waste and fraud.
“If money is sent to a person or organisation from the government and you didn’t really deserve it, but the government still sent it… is that waste or fraud?
“There’s a lot of payments where someone approved the payment but that payment officer changed jobs or retired or died, and the payments just keep going. Like if you forget to cancel your gym membership.
“Now imagine the gym membership is $20billion a year. But they forgot to turn it off. That’s happening at scale in the government. It’s totally insane.”
Doge is already estimated to have saved as much as $105billion, or $652.17 per taxpayer, according to data on the agency website.
The agency’s website has an ‘Unconstitutionality Index’ which highlights how a disproportionately greater number of agency rules are created by unelected bureaucrats, than laws passed by the Congress.
This peaked in 2023, when over 3,000 rules were created compared to only 68 laws being passed - in other words, over 44 rules were created per law passed.
Find Out More...
Musk has served as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) since it was founded in January, though the official administrator is Amy Gleason.
The agency seeks to carry out spending cuts, eliminate waste and modernise federal technology and governance.
Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast last Friday, the world’s richest man and senior advisor to US President Donald Trump highlighted the wasteful use of American funds.
Rogan asked the Tesla CEO: “The size of it when you first started investigating it…when you first got in, how much of it was shocking, just the size of it all?”
Musk replied: “Small decisions result in multi-billion dollar outcomes, so there was a case where one person was getting $1.9billion sent to their NGO, which basically got formed a year ago and had no prior activity.”
Musk continued to explain that tens of thousands, if not millions, of NGOs are allegedly being used to generate money.
He continued to explain: “The whole NGO thing is a nightmare and it's a misnomer because if you have a government-funded non-governmental organisation, you’re simply a government organisation. It’s an oxymoron.
“Government-funded NGOs are ways to fund things that would be illegal if it was the government but is somehow made legal if it’s sent to a so-called non-profit.
“But people then cash out these non-profits and become very wealthy. They pay themselves enormous funds through these non-profits.
“It’s a gigantic scam. Maybe the biggest scam ever.”
MORE ELON MUSK:
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Musk continued by outlining the “real issue” was with the Budget deficit which according to the Doge website, increased from $984.4billion in 2019, to $1.83trillion in 2024 - an increase of 85.9 per cent.
Musk then went on to highlight “the fundamental weakness in the government is that the various government databases don't talk to each other.
“They do, but very poorly. In a very limited way. So the way the system gets exploited is by taking advantage of the poor communication between the databases in the government.
“To give you an example in the Treasury, the main payment computers (PAM) that’s responsible for $5trillion a year or roughly $1billion an hour.
“We’re looking at these payments and they have no categorisation code and no description on the payment. Basically an untraceable blank cheque.”
Musk then outlined one of Doge’s victories on the matter, claiming his recommendation to the treasury and federal reserve was to introduce mandatory categorisation codes and explanations.
He continued: “We're not judging the quality of the explanation but there should be some explanation for what the payment is above ‘nothing’.
“That’s a radical change to the system that’s being implemented down. My guess is that saves $100billion a year.”
When then asked where that money was going, Musk couldn’t give an answer.
He said: “Well this is where you get into the grey boundary between waste and fraud.
“If money is sent to a person or organisation from the government and you didn’t really deserve it, but the government still sent it… is that waste or fraud?
“There’s a lot of payments where someone approved the payment but that payment officer changed jobs or retired or died, and the payments just keep going. Like if you forget to cancel your gym membership.
“Now imagine the gym membership is $20billion a year. But they forgot to turn it off. That’s happening at scale in the government. It’s totally insane.”
Doge is already estimated to have saved as much as $105billion, or $652.17 per taxpayer, according to data on the agency website.
The agency’s website has an ‘Unconstitutionality Index’ which highlights how a disproportionately greater number of agency rules are created by unelected bureaucrats, than laws passed by the Congress.
This peaked in 2023, when over 3,000 rules were created compared to only 68 laws being passed - in other words, over 44 rules were created per law passed.
Find Out More...