Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency began its cost-cutting efforts by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which spends about $22 billion per year, about 0.3 percent of overall federal spending. DOGE has since targeted agencies focused on children’s education, protecting the natural world, and food safety.

But after more than a month running roughshod through government, DOGE has made strikingly few cuts at the Pentagon, whose bloated budget tips the scales at around $850 billion — accounting for about 13 percent of federal spending.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth encouraged DOGE to hack away at his department on X last week. “We welcome DOGE and finding those efficiencies is how we save taxpayer dollars.” But experts question just how open the Pentagon really is to DOGE, and whether Musk’s merry band of bean-counters has the mettle to do battle with the Department of Defense and its backers.

On DOGE’s “Agency Efficiency Leaderboard,” which shows some of the largest “savings” it has claimed to achieve, the Defense Department is currently wallowing in 16th place out of a total of 22 spots. It’s an especially dismal showing since Defense is the largest government agency, with a budget rocketing toward $1 trillion per year, and has failed seven straight annual audits. The U.S. military budget is the largest in the world — more than triple that of China, 8.5 times higher than Russia, and exceeds the next nine countries combined. Military expenditures are the largest component of discretionary spending in the U.S. budget and are projected to rise over the next decade.

If agencies devoted to saving lives — such as the Department of Health and Human Services or USAID — are on the chopping block, a department that has spent some $8 trillion on foreign wars since 9/11 deserves a close look by DOGE. Potential cuts aren’t hard to find: The Intercept easily sketched a road map amounting to more than $75 billion in annual savings for Musk and DOGE — and as much as $2 trillion over the next decade.

That figure dwarfs the $65 billion DOGE claims to have already saved taxpayers through a combination of “fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.” Independent analyses say many of DOGE cuts so far have been overstated or are ephemeral, with some contract cancellations double or triple-counted. The Intercept, for instance, found that DOGE’s claim of saving taxpayers nearly $232 million by canceling an IT contract for the Social Security Administration was off by about $231 million.

It’s obvious that the Defense Department is ripe for cost-cutting. The question is whether DOGE — which is neither a federal executive department nor headed by Musk and may well be unconstitutional — is up for a fight with the department, its contractors, and their backers on Capitol Hill. One Pentagon official said that DOGE has so far taken on “weak” agencies, but that Musk’s cost-cutters will be “steamrolled” if they lock horns with the Defense Department. The official offered comments on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

The Defense Department’s press office failed to respond to........

© The Intercept