Trump and Musk to date present scant proof for his or her claims of fraud

President Donald Trump stated 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 among the names that a whole lot of thousands and thousands and even billions of {dollars} have been given to,” the president stated 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 aid for states, lodging for migrants in cities and that 150-year-olds are receiving Social Safety funds. Nonetheless, what few particulars had been offered had been obscure, unsupported and generally false.

The truth is, Musk admitted Tuesday that a few of its claims is likely to be “incorrect.”

Throughout his first information convention since beginning DOGE, Musk backtracked on a declare that $50 million was spent by the federal authorities to provide 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.

The truth is, the condoms had been despatched to a province in Mozambique named Gaza as a part of an HIV prevention measure.

“A few of the issues I say could also be incorrect and ought to be corrected. No person’s batting 1.000,” Musk informed reporters within the Oval Workplace. “All of us make errors, however we’ll act to rapidly right 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 companies has been realized by reporting, response from authorities workers affected by DOGE’s actions, or when DOGE and company heads shut down authorities places of work and despatched workers house.

The updates that DOGE and Musk present on his X social media platform are sometimes obscure and sometimes do not comprise 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 known as it a “rip-off.” Trump handed the declare alongside on his Fact Social platform, posting “GIVE BACK THE MONEY NOW!”

Nonetheless, public data present the contract was awarded in 2018, throughout Trump’s first time period, to Thompson Reuters Particular Companies 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 stated 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 emblem 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 employees.

The web site cites its “sources” as largely publicly obtainable OPM information.

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

When requested Tuesday to speak concerning the specifics of the fraud he discovered, Musk alleged there have been folks receiving Social Safety advantages who had been 150 years previous. Musk didn’t present any extra particulars or specifics on how he discovered these folks’s Social Safety data.

Regardless of Musk’s corporations SpaceX and Tesla being awarded not less than $18 billion in federal contracts over the previous decade and SpaceX profitable greater than $17 million price 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 stated Musk’s Telsa is forecast to win a $400 million contract to offer “armored Teslas” to the State Division later this yr.

The contract, which was modified in December and scheduled to be awarded in September, is predicted to final for 5 years, in line with 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 corporations aren’t benefitting from his entry, he stated that every one of DOGE’s actions are “totally public.”

“So, should you see something you say like, ‘Wait a second. Hey, you recognize what that does? That looks as if perhaps that is, you recognize, that there is a battle there,'” he stated. It’s not like persons are going to be shy about saying that. They will 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 stated that DOGE’s transparency will construct belief.

“After which you’ll be able to see, am I doing one thing that advantages one in every of my corporations or not? It’s very apparent,” he stated.