this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Summary

$150 billion: that’s the grand total of savings Elon Musk revealed last Thursday that he and his DOGE team are “expecting” to make after months of ruthless and often mindless cuts.

To call this a monumentally unimpressive number doesn’t do it justice. Musk’s “savings” here — which are already error-ridden and inflated in the first place, created by totaling up spending that never actually existed or that was, alternately, either already cut or never actually was — represent just 15% of the trillion dollars he originally promised he would slash.

In fact, government spending so far under Donald Trump has actually gone up compared to the last two years under Joe Biden.

“Musk will have effectively crippled the modern American state and ripped vital services away from ordinary Americans in order to pay for more waste at the Pentagon.”

(page 2) 47 comments
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[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 week ago

Here's a message to all people who let this happen:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Its about transfer of wealth. Always has been.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I'm possibly more worried about what he didn't destroy at this point. What's gone will at least be rebuilt largely from scratch by people that care about restoring those institutions.

My huge worry now is what backdoors are now in systems like social security that impacts us all and we may not find out about for a long time. How much identity theft and scamming will go on now that outside actors likely have access to some or all of that data?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security

Every. Fucking. Thing that doge touched has been backdoored to Russia. Doge is a front to get sensitive information to the Kremlin. Elon is a fucking traitor.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They increased the budget of the Pentagon. You should be worried about where the funds are being moved-to

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The military budget doesn't seem to have gone up by anything that hasnt been trending the last decade or 2, and despite all the talk about going to fight other countries, I don't think there is enough support for anything other than Iran, and even that I dont think would be done directly by the US military.

I do worry more about a more internally agro surveillance state, but with facial recognition and a camera on every doorbell, I think we've already long traded privacy for security. I keep learning about previous rebellions and having covert places to gather, plan, and stage have really been crucial, and I don't know how one does that in the modern world.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

The only people who thought he was "saving money" or "making things more efficient" were fooling themselves or others.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

It was always about accomplishing the decimation, and he got trillions in the process. It's idiotic as fuck to still be taking these things at their word and acting like they just didn't succeed at it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

$150 billion is the target for FY 2025, not what they've actually saved.

And as the article says, we already know that their "receipts" were mostly wrong or bullshit, so even that number will be inflated.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

To put it into perspective...if Elon Musk were working paycheck-to-paycheck, he found enough money in the couch the night before payday to buy a pack of smokes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

With the damage done, it would be like he got a hernia while looking for the change only to find out how shitty his health insurance is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

he found enough money in the couch the night before payday to buy a pack of smokes

Relatively speaking, did he even find that much? I live in a poor, red state and cigarettes are almost $10 a pack (which is only a bit more than what they cost in NY in 2005). If I hadn't quit ~~almost~~ over a decade ago, I'd for sure be quitting now.

Edit: I quit in 2013 and am now realizing that's over a decade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

When a friend of mine told me a pack of Marlboros cost like $15 in RI I was amazed. How the fuck are people paying almost $1/cig?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Speaking from experience, it's a hard habit to break. But you'd think the mental image of rolling up a $1 bill and lighting it on fire would push some people away.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago

His goal was to get rid of regulators who dared regulate his companies, and suck up all the data for AI-BS (and possibly extortion). Quit accepting his framing and look at what he really did.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He did the absolute reverse of saving. He destroyed and cost the US TRILLIONS of dollars. The IRS alone will not collect an additional +$500 billion in revenue this year and every year going forward. Over ten years, that's $5 trillion in extra uncollected revenue, and I'm sure this is a conservative estimate.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

You mean the IRS alone will not steal an additional +$500 billion from the poor, helpless billionaires this year, right? /s

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

for half a second I thought this comment was just poor because of how late the billionaires part came in the sentence.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Just enough to get the libertarians frothing before the scowl.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

To call this a monumentally unimpressive number doesn’t do it justice. Musk’s “savings” here — which are already error-ridden and inflated in the first place, created by totaling up spending that never actually existed or that was, alternately, either already cut or never actually was — represent just 15% of the trillion dollars he originally promised he would slash.

7.5%. He promised $2 trillion in cuts.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The amount of money it’ll take to fix all this will dwarf the $150B. By several factors at least.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Good thing the US is trashing all their trade agreements, then. That'll make paying for it so much easier.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The CFPB people he cut were saving citizens - i.e. the very taxpayers Musk claims to represent without a mandate of any kind - $21 billion already.

He was selling our dollars for pennies.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

It doesn't count unless it goes to the government. Taxes and exploitation are good as long as they come from private companies instead of the government because freedom is a vibe rather than an actual set of circumstances.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

It doesn’t matter when the loads of idiots think he’s a genius. My dad is one of them. He refuses to believe anything that would call this into question calling it fake news. What am I even supposed to do?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Slap the shit out of your dad 🤷🏼‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My mother-in-law thinks he's an altruistic genius—essentially a super-hero. It seems the maga boomer internet is filled with AI generated sites that spread the Gospel of Musk. The one I saw was ludicrous: it promised that Elon has developed an amazing sci-fi wheelchair that he will soon be making available for under $200 (!). The wheelchairs pictured were obvious Dall-E level AI slop, the text read like it was translated into English by GPT. Nobody with even rudimentary critical thinking would believe these absurd claims.

But the comment section was littered with desperate old people pleading to knew where they could order these mobile miracles. A Cargo Cult of credulous, desperate fools.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

The generation that warned us all growing up about how we shouldn't believe anything on the Internet will now swallow anything they read on the Internet (without any critical thinking) as long as it has a like from one of their friends.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly, Elmo is as coherent as xQc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

cyberbully your dad

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

$150 billion

Does this even take into account all the extra work and thus spending doge's flailing caused?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

In addition to that cutting NOAA staff only saves money until the next hurricane hits, cutting the CDC only saves money until the next outbreak hits, cutting the FDA only saves money until the next foodborne contamination etc. etc.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

One would think the US already has enough experience in how it does not work like that, but it seems the guys in power are determined to walk that road til the end. What's the end though?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What's the end though?

Hopefully, the collapse of America into several smaller states, with the most powerful blocs (again hopefully) being less shitty than America was.

More likely, the collapse of America into chaos

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

And lawyer time

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 weeks ago

just as planned girl fire meme

I feel I'm doing Me-lon a favor by comparing him to this amazing piece of internet history but there we are.

[–] [email protected] 140 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

“Musk will have effectively crippled the modern American state and ripped vital services away from ordinary Americans in order to pay for more waste at the Pentagon.”

So, mission accomplished then? I never believed for a moment it was ever about reducing waste / increasing efficiency. At best, it was scrounging the government couch for change to pay for tax breaks for the rich.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The only waste in government is corruption. “Inefficiencies” are actually resiliency—a crucial trait of any social system.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Well, yeah. He should have named it the Department of Dismantling the Administrative State, but that's not a meme.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Department Engaged in Actively Dismantling the Administrative State Structure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hey, I just realized that the Department of Dismantling the Organized State could be DoDOS, or DDOS, both of which work too

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Department of Destroying Our Dedicated Operational State

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

DDOS the government

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago

should have named it the Department of Dismantling the Administrative State, but that's not a meme.

At least if you read the acronym backwards, SADD, it's fitting.

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