Trump says he could give 20% of DOGE savings back to Americans

Donald Trump, president of the United States, has suggested using some of Elon Musk’s cost-savings efforts to give Americans cash and lower their government debt.

Speaking at an investment summit hosted by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in Miami Beach, Florida, on Wednesday, Trump said he was considering using 20 percent of the savings for payouts to the public and 20 percent to pay down the federal government’s $36 trillion debt.

“The numbers are incredible, Elon. According to Trump, “so many billions of dollars… hundreds of billions,” Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) identified savings at the Priority Summit of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute.

“We’re thinking about giving 20 percent back to the American citizens, and 20 percent down to pay back debt”.

Trump’s suggestion came a day after DOGE adviser James Fishback, the CEO of investment firm Azoria, proposed a “DOGE dividend” funded by the cost-cutting initiative.

If Musk’s task force can save $2 trillion by the time its work is finished, in July 2026, according to a four-page memo posted on X on Tuesday, Fishback said every tax-paying household could receive a $5, 000 check.

In response to Fishback’s memo, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said on X that he would “check with the President”.

During Trump’s election campaign, Musk, the world’s richest person, predicted he could find $2 trillion in savings but later backtracked on that estimate, suggesting in an interview in January that he had a good chance of saving half that much.

DOGE, an official government department, claims to have saved $55 billion so far, but hasn’t released specifics to back up that claim.

DOGE released a list of contracts it claimed to have terminated on Monday in order to save $ 16 billion.

The list, however, misstated the value of a $8m contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as $8bn.

Regarding Trump’s proposal to share government savings with the general public, Guo Xu, an associate professor at UC Berkeley Haas who studies the effectiveness of government bureaucracies, had reservations.

According to Xu, “This seems like a populist measure meant to make our federal government capacity more enticing.”