Also worth highlighting that The Upshot found this error on the first item they reviewed. If already the first one you check is wrong, then the Bayesian in me has a hard time having much confidence in the rest of it.
There are more oddities for sure. For example, when they cancel a multi-year contract they are considering the entire value of the contract as savings even if a significant chunk of the money has already been distributed.
On "Wall of Receipts" on the DOGE website there's a switch with "total contract value" and "savings" options. I guess that the purpose of the second option is to exclude money that has already been paid for that contract. It should be the default option, but of course they want to show a bigger number. But I see some strange cases where total contract value is lower than savings, but that's in real estate, I don't know how that works and what they're doing with that.
No, they were the ones who found that someone entered $8B in the system, asked them to change it to $8M. They never reported saving $8B in their own savings for this program. The numbers they used are tied into the systems so it only updates with the system.
DOGE did claim $8B in savings on their own system on Monday. That's the whole article is about. There's even a screenshot.
The $8B -> $8M change was made in Federal Procurement System on January 22nd.
So if DOGE is who found the issue in the procurement system originally, that means they lied about saving $8B weeks after they discovered it was only for $8M.
I think the ubiquity of general disarray and confusion surrounding this agency is relevant to the discussion of whether or not we can trust their intentions and claims. So, further evidence of the extent of this general disarray and confusion is worth considering and not "pointless flame bait".
According to DOGE, DOGE were actually the ones who found the error in January that someone in the government had entered $8B in the records and DOGE had it updated to $8M.
Oh those young inexperienced guys are quite ready for their big important job, namely, being cannon fodders for destroying the government via fear, uncertainty, and doubt. (And if Trump ever feels they've outlived their usefulness, he can dispose of them freely.)
It's just that it's not the job they thought they were signing up for.
Cut your friendly neighborhood billionaire some slack. How else will you expect him to expand companies to serve you better, airplanes that don't crash for example.
In September 2022, the agency contracting officer mistakenly wrote $8B instead of $8M when logging in the FPDS database. DOGE discovered this error in January 2025, and the agency updated FPDS accordingly. DOGE has always used the correct $8M in its calculations.
The contract, with a company called D&G Support Services, was to provide “program and technical support services” for the Office of Diversity and Civil Rights at ICE.
... the federal award, approved in September 2022, had initially listed a total value of $8 billion. But on Jan. 22 this year, that figure was updated to $8 million.
DOGE involvement aside, that right there is not exactly the exculpatory evidence NY Times thinks it is.
The USA is not just a democracy, it is a republic. Trump is not all-powerfull for 4 years because he won one election.
If you think so, then I can see a future Democrat president curtailing the 2nd amendment via executive fiat. You happy with that? This is how democracy works, right?
The USA is both a democracy (we vote) and a republic (we have a president instead of a monarch). They are not mutually exclusive. It is, in fact, a democratic republic.
It goes to [flagged][dead], people vouch because it’s [dead] until it’s no longer [flagged] or [dead], then flagged back to [flagged] and it can’t be vouched anymore.
If they were this article wouldn't appear on the front page in the first place; it's a community vote, and while one could posit it's malicious actors / bots / etc, at the same time there's enough people that are sick of political reporting and articles.
It's the downside of a democratic system, if enough people dislike it things will go away.
My duties as a citizen are one thing. I don't have those same duties as a reader of HN, though. This site doesn't have to be /r/politics; we have /r/politics for that.
Having experienced the oligarch takeover in the post-Soviet Ukraine, looking at it from the inside is as surreal. People will be studying this collapse for centuries, and this is ONLY the beginning.
There's a bunch of us who aren't buddying up to Musk. We're just tired of 10 Musk posts a day.
Most politics are off topic here. Yeah, there's some exceptional stuff going on, that's worth talking about. No, that doesn't mean that every political story is now something we should cover.
But for every story, there are people who say, "Yes, but this story is one we should cover!" That's fine; you can think that.
What's less fine is thinking that everyone who flags it is licking Musk's and/or Trump's boots. That's not cool. That's 1) not assuming good faith, and 2) drifting into personal attacks, both of which are against the site rules.
So cool it with accusing us of being Musk sycophants. Some of us are just tired of the same stuff multiple times a day, every day for the past month.
Note well: I personally did not flag this story... but I understand why others might.
That’s not what I see. Usually it’s posts making factual claims that aren’t backed by evidence or which are otherwise breaking guidelines. The former seems to be a more widespread problem from what I’ve seen.
The pro-DOGE comments generally tend to repeat Musk/Trump/DOGE allegations, without evidence in support of those allegations. Trump and Musk are serial fabulists.
On the other hand, you have the anti-DOGE folks who can credibly claim that, unless shown otherwise, the things being shredded by DOGE were apportioned legally by a co-equal branch of government, and that the president does notnhave the right to undermine a co-equal branch of government. In America, we do not have an all-powerful executive.
It's not surprising, maybe even coordinated. Reddit has a similar problem of Musk fanboys brigading threads about Tesla, coming from Discord chats.
And look at the bottom of the page. YC is advertising an "AI Startup School" with Musk and Altman. Peter Thiel was a member at some point. I'm not implying the mods are putting their thumb on the scale but this site does attract people who are pro-oligarchy if they think they too can make a buck.
Show me one that has substance. I see a lot of really wild stuff, but it all boils down to indirect attacks [0], not arguments. Seen any different? Show me.
[0] "why did democrats/progressives/leftists never say anything when.." and all that, basically lumping all criticism of this into whatever fantasy category the author happens to prefer, and then projecting what is being avoided on that category of people.
Some want to talk about the substance, others kick up sand, and then some people say "oh this is not nice, let's split the difference and just shut it all down until it goes away". Which is essentially the end result of what all the kicking up sand is trying to achieve.
Do you think there exist any circumstances in which the NYT would say anything against the liberal narrative? Specifically, if there was incontrovertible evidence of government waste uncovered by DOGE, or anything else where there were facts and evidence but stating them would make the president look good, would NYT report it? Or would they ignore it? Or, just a theory here, maybe they would minimize it? You know, get the views from the story but apply a treatment to reduce values, like say, dollar values? Could they ever be capable of such a thing?
Musk said they will clean up, I only have seen false information, wrong numbers and the removal of a few millions of aid which is something the biggest economy on the planet should easily be able to afford.
If condoms against HIV is the biggest win so far, the question would be if it's valid to disrupt millions of lives and destroying/ignoring the separation of power in a / the biggest democracy we nlknow.
They'd absolutely report on it. I consume news from many different conservative and liberal sources. NYT newsroom is still one of the best and while bias can't be completely eliminated, they are fair. The opinion section of course leans to the left, and I find little value in it, but that has no bearing on the newsroom.
The NYT has decades of qualification in uncovering government waste from all administrations. Their greatest failure - the fake pretense that led to the second US-Iraq war - occured in favor of a Republican administration.
He bought a propaganda platform, manipulated the public and has now a seat in the lap of trump.
He said for 10 years Tesla cars will drive itself, he says doge saved billions but so far they just cut things and haven't found the smoking gun and very soon they will take Medicaid away and social security.
Billionaires who don't need a state dismantling the social state to make more money.
What large entities do Musk and his crew have experience with auditing? None? Musk and his crew have no clue what they're doing, and they have no experience doing it. Only a fool would believe anything they say on the matter.
DOGE didn't even confuse it - the system of record was wrong then updated later to a lower amount. These are exactly the kinds of problems with the system.
The only reason I'd do this is to bolster Thiel's portofolio companies. With this data the spy software and AI will be the most complete version of the American population's relationships and dealings. Every financial transaction, every coffee purchase paid by digital currency can now be profiled against Palantir and Anduril's tech stack.
Honestly who cares about a few billion in savings when it comes to a nation's dealings. It was always about the data.
It doesn't actually matter if they 'save' any money, it's a systematic use of smoke and mirrors to dismantle checks and balances to on the one side give free reign to capitalism and on the other to concentrate power. But this wasn't a secret, and 77 million people voted in favor of it despite knowing this was the plan.
Musk is exagerrating as usual; everything is auditable, but not everything is always easy and instantaneous. He has unrealistic expectations and he's not really improving things. DOGE could have set up a better system but they instead seem hell bent on trashing everything (and getting write access on these systems they pretend to audit - meaning they can plant false data against the previous administration to try them Soviet-style).
Lol, no. Musk will say anything just to blame his own mistakes onto someone else. If Musk wanted to do audit, he should have do audit rather then what he is doing now.
Either way, "payments weren't labeled with any auditable information" is nonsense claim. It means nothing. Payments are auditable even if they have zero labels attached to them.
Any statement by Elon Musk is worthless. It's actually worse than worthless in that it is often an intentional lie intending to muddy the waters if not just grossly mislead.
"the Treasury payments weren't labeled with any auditable information"
Do you really, truly believe this? I'm going to assume you don't and are having a laugh, because someone would have to be profoundly gullible to actually believe such a blatant lie by a self serving clown like Elon Musk.
Musk and crew are like the absolute worst garbage programmer that ten minutes into looking at a codebase tell you that it's terrible code and needs to be thrown away, but don't worry they're going to build something super way better. Their own incompetence and lack of understanding is projected out.
They are walking into immensely complex, massive systems -- doing things they have *zero* experience or credibility doing -- and looking at, for instance, the optional, largely meaningless "description" field on a payment and passing judgment. This is worthless analysis. It isn't an "audit", it's godzilla stomping.
The US is going to to take countless hundreds of billions and decades to recover from what these imbeciles are doing. Even more perplexing are the number of people who truly think they're doing good.
Nothing they are doing even takes very much skill at all. It's literally reading records and actually looking at them. That is exactly what wasn't being done before.
>Nothing they are doing even takes very much skill at all
It requires the skill of understand all of the components, systems and partners involved in every transaction. Elon and crew have amply demonstrated that they don't understand any of those parts, nor are they interested in any due diligence or actual work.
Because they don't have to. There is a large enough contingent of Americans that will accept whatever garbage they say, however outrageous the lie or falsity.
The US has descended to an unbelievably corrupt idiocracy. People were too comfortable so they want a little chaos, and they're going to get it. In four years, the tens of millions that voted for this profound stupidity are going to claim the Dems made them or something. But her emails.
> Musk and crew are like the absolute worst garbage programmer that ten minutes into looking at a codebase tell you that it's terrible code and needs to be thrown away, but don't worry they're going to build something super way better. Their own incompetence and lack of understanding is projected out.
You know this is silly right? Musk's team just released a very competitive AI product. Telsa has self-driving cars. Starlink is providing internet and cellular service all over the global via a network of satellites.
And you think he's not competent enough to audit a payment system? Never mind the fact he used to be one of the owners of PayPal, an actual payment system.
I know people don't like Musk, I get it. But these are delusional takes.
>I know people don't like Musk, I get it. But these are delusional takes.
I am simply awe-struck at your cultish nonsense.
I am a great software developer. I am an expert at complex AI systems. That doesn't make me a truck driver. It doesn't make me a heart surgeon. It doesn't make me a forensic auditor. It doesn't make me an architect or a packaging designer or a dietician or a beautician. I'm not insane or stupid enough to think my narrow expertise means I'm an expert at all things because I am intelligent enough to understand how incredibly stupid that would be.
And yes, they have already, time and again, proven how incredibly incompetent they are. Just shocking, outrageous incompetence.
Ooops! Totally wrong part of the globe. But, you know, say something about condom bombs for the clucking masses of imbeciles.
These clowns are idiots. They know nothing about forensic auditing (Musk's "gosh a payment description line isn't filled in therefore it's untrackable" is so outlandishly stupid that only absolute imbeciles buy this nonsense), and the fact that Musk was forced on PayPal or that he spends money on rockets or cars to justify his incredible overreach is...shockingly dumb.
You had to have posted that in jest. You had to.
Forensic auditing takes lots of time and effort and tracking and error checking and assurances. When this idiot rushes in and makes immediate proclamations, instantly he is discounted as a charlatan. Amazing that this actually works on some people.
Shows even hackers are prone to propaganda. It's a shame such ignorance is flaunted on full display in a forum about encouraging and exploring curiosity.
Musk seems totally qualified to manage a team of programmers and a team of auditors based on his real-world experience managing companies that work in high tech and financial sectors. He seems infinitely more qualified than whatever political appointees were running federal departments.
I don't think we've reached the 'forensic' auditing stage, we're at the 'gathering information' stage. We see the smoke, now we'll need to investigate for fires. Basic payment controls not being present seem like a huge red flag to me. Is Musk lying? Maybe. Are bureaucrats incompetent? Absolutely. Take the example payments to prohibited entities such as terrorists groups being rubber stamped. That's pretty damning if true.
Two articles from left-wing Musk-hating media aren't going to be read by me because both of those institutions have a history of propaganda and outright lying.
>And you think he's not competent enough to audit a payment system?
No, I do not trust even the best engineers to do a government wide audit in the course of weeks. The audit itself would take months alone before making any suggestions on budget.
And it's unnecessary because I guess know one knows that GOA exists already for that.
> But these are delusional takes.
If you're early in your career, I hope you look back 5, 10 years from now and realize how insane everything you said is. You're comparing a private business releasing a product to auditing one of the largest countries in earth worth 10s of trillions.
Do you really imagine Musk hunched over his laptop, pouring through government codebases and data carefully to find issues, stopping every 2 mins to send a tweet? You really think he has anything to do with this "audit"?
The richest man in the world stomped on USAID, a program that helps the poorest people on the planet, with it taking billions in payments from US farmers. Enormous numbers of low-level government civil servants were unceremoniously turfed from their job, many new grads who had just moved for said job. Researchers are having funding yanked. You know, like the people who cure disease.
The elites are the people absolutely unharmed. In fact they're the ones who bankrolled and fooled tens of millions of Americans into voting for this oligarchy.
Who said that? We had at least 3 recessions in 30 years.
And what does that have to do with the elite? They don't care about recession. Worst case they move to a new country pending full collapse. They will never own up to the consequences of their actions.
Seeing that article -- an article that basically has zero actual foundation for its headline -- quoted constantly by people justifying an autocracy / oligarchy, is simply amazing.
Americans are staggeringly, blissfully unaware of what they have to lose. Of how far things can fall. And they are going to fall at a shocking clip.
And somehow you'll blame that on Democrats. It's the norm.
To be honest, i do not care much for the clownish figureheads of the tribalist regression. I care for a extensive root cause analysis, so that there is a viable, voteable-for alternative in 3 years when democracy comes once again to the test. One that has no old democratic figureheads (well maybe except for bernie) and no "right on, right on" as program. I want party internal reform and if for that the party as a whole has to renorm and give up on beloved ideas it deemed more important than the voters thus far so be it.
Also, calling Trump supporters "dogs" is more demeaning and more insulting than any "deplorables" stuff. This is not even anti-intellectual stuff, this is anti-human.
I think this was an honest mistake. But it demonstrates exactly why it’s so dangerous for Elon Musk and our president to make sweeping accusations before understanding the situation.
Lives are being ruined right now - federal employees, citizens who rely on the programs being cut, and people around the world who benefited from US generosity.
The sad part about all of this is that clearly in a system as large as the federal government, there is waste. Elon has the opportunity to make a real impact, but he’s demonstrated that he just cares about optics and will not put in the effort required.
They have not updated the site with the correct total and have removed the documentation of the correct value and replaced it with a link to the incorrect value. In those circumstances it takes an extreme stretching on the imagination to consider it an honest mistake.
> Elon has the opportunity to make a real impact, but he’s demonstrated that he just cares about optics and will not put in the effort required.
Musk is using his opportunity to do real impact and is achieving real impact. Exactly the impact he wanted and want. He has exactly optics he wants and exactly material changes he wants.
The impact is not positive to most people affected by it, but Elon Musk demonstrated again and again and again and again that he does not care about that.
