7 ms·
Doge Claimed It Saved $8B in One Contract. It Was $8M
- LorenDB 2y agohttps://archive.ph/btyqh https://archive.ph/btyqh
- aredox 2y ago[flagged]
- monero-xmr 2y ago[flagged]
- lawn 2y agoAnd yet every story mentioning Doge, musk, or Trump are instantly flagged. Almost like most of the HN readership disagree with their actions, but a minority still manages to get the stories removed?
- dartos 2y agoI wondering why HN had so few posts critical of Musk and Trump
- dashundchen 2y agoIt'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.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoThat’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.
- drawkward 2y agoThe 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.
- computerthings 2y agoShow 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.
- maeil 2y agoThis post is now permaflagged.
- mlnj 2y agoIt's open corruption and it seems the silicon valley acquaintances are all in on it. It's truly a spectacle to see from outside of the US right now.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIf 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.
- aredox 2y agoMaking sure people are "sick" of political reporting and articles is exactly the strategy of modern authoritarian governance, from Russia to Hungary. The US Founding Fathers would judge extremely harshly modern people disengaging from their duties as citizens.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoMy 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.
- renegade-otter 2y agoHaving 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.
- taylodl 2y agoIt's only been 18 minutes. Usually takes 30 minutes to get flagged.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Philpax 2y agoAnd right on time, there's the flag.
- taylodl 2y agoIt just got unflagged? I didn't know an article could get unflagged.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoIt 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.
- Akronymus 2y agoAt a certain point in terms of points you get the ability to vouch for flagged stuff. Altough, I think that privilege can be taken away if abused
- maeil 2y agoPermaflagged now.
- tl 2y agoI just refreshed HN. This story is #10 when I'm logged in and gone when viewing from a private window.
- gosub100 2y agoDo 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?
- watwut 2y agoDOGE uncovered its own waste and incompetence, that is about it.
- Frankion 2y agoWhere is this huge waste though? 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.
- mlnj 2y agoAlso, all of this will definitely mean loss of soft power throughout the world for the States.
- skepticATX 2y agoThey'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.
- aredox 2y agoThe 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.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoThere'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.
- aredox 2y agoHN as an ivory tower.
- stuaxo 2y agoI'm beginning to think these young inexperienced guys aren't quite ready for a big important job.
- VHRanger 2y agowhat happens when you prioritize loyalty over all else. This hiring and promotion pattern is also why autocracies tend to be mismanaged nightmares
- laidoffamazon 2y agoAnd here I thought these guys were all about "merit"
- Frankion 2y agoBut Musk successfully build a new type of fast travel car tunnel? And he optimized twitters value to 10 Billion?!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- yongjik 2y agoOh 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.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago[flagged]
- ericmay 2y agoWhat/which elites and empires are being squeezed?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThis sounds like echoing the brainwashing and doublethink; the "elite" is in power at the moment and they are building an empire.
- llm_nerd 2y agoThe "elites"? Good god. 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.
- 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- linuxftw 2y ago[flagged]
- taylodl 2y agoWhat 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.
- slipheen 2y agoRespectfully, I don't see how that comment relates to this discussion, can you help me better understand what you're going for? In this case, DOGE confused 8M for 8B. That's 3 orders of magnitude of difference. I don't see how having payments labeled differently would change that. Can you clarify what you're implying the problem was here?
- linuxftw 2y ago[flagged]
- Sparyjerry 2y agoDOGE 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.
- drawkward 2y agoThis is precisely the reason to not just shut shit down willy-nilly.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt 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.
- 2y ago
- hnthrow90348765 2y agoWhat's a few orders of magnitude among friends, eh?
- VHRanger 2y agoI draw the line at 5 personally. 4 if I'm being picky. A mere 1,000x difference? This is just pedantry
- mlnj 2y agoCut 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.
- alsoforgotmypwd 2y agoBut it's so competitive to become the world's first trillionaire. So all is fair: monkey wrenches, caltrops, and oil slicks to elbow out the upstarts.
- skepticATX 2y agoI 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.
- tssva 2y agoThey 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.
- Frankion 2y agoMy personal expectations of someone optimizing the spending of the biggest military power on the planet apparently seem to be higher than yours. I would have a proper research and validation team in place making sure there are only correct information being shared
- watwut 2y ago> 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.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoI would have called it an honest mistake at the beginning of the month. I more or less lost the BOTD when he forced his way into USAID >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. That was clear at least 7 years ago. Never too late to realize this but I sure wish more people researched back in 2024.
- Etheryte 2y agoAlso 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.
- skepticATX 2y agoThere 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.
- oskarkk 2y agoOn "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. https://www.doge.gov/savings https://www.doge.gov/savings
- belter 2y agoNow update your priors about who runs it :-) "Contradictory statements about Musk make it unclear who runs DOGE" - https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-claims-elon-musk-doesnt-run-doge/story?id=118913206 https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-claims-elon-musk-doesn...
- Etheryte 2y agoI'm not really sure how that's relevant? I'm not even American, I don't care who runs it. This seems like pointless flame bait.
- psb217 2y agoI 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".
- aczerepinski 2y agoIt wasn’t $8M either since some of the contracted amount has already been spent. They should have used $5.5M in the headline.
- josefritzishere 2y agoThey can't code and they cant count. This DOGE endeavor is an embarassment.
- 11101010001100 2y agoWhat happened to trust but verify?
- nickthegreek 2y agotrust is earned.
- Volundr 2y agoHow long do keep trusting when your verifications keep failing?
- dekhn 2y agoTrust but verify just means "Don't trust, verify".
- flowerthoughts 2y agoOr more precisely: "be polite, but verify"
- disqard 2y agoTrust me bro, no need to verify.
- blargthorwars 2y ago[flagged]
- taylodl 2y agoThe ends don't justify the means in a Constitutional Republic
- mlnj 2y agoTens of thousands of jobs lost. Inflation rising steadily. Hundreds of thousands of poor affected. Pregnant and disabled people in real danger due to cutting health program funding throughout the country. The closest 2 neighbors on the verge of declaring the United States not longer an 'ally'. But yeah, $8M is $8M.
- ReflectedImage 2y agoThey already wasted $500M in loss of perishable goods. So a "saving" of -$492 million so far.
- drawkward 2y agoNo, because the $8M was allocated by a coequal branch of government. The president gets to veto things at that stage, not afterward. Should the president have an ex post facto veto for everything? That sounds more like an autocracy to me.
- blased 2y ago[flagged]
- Frankion 2y agoI'm not against gov efficiency. I just find it disrespectful to try to do this in a week while trump has 4 years to clean up. This disruptive behavior kills people and hasn't provided any efficiency for real waste. Btw government jobs are good. Capitalism is not the end goal.
- blased 2y ago[flagged]
- aredox 2y agoThe 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?
- rascul 2y agoThe 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mynameyeff 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoA more appropriate question might be: why are you not?
- johnnyanmac 2y agoIf you don't want to called a duck, stop quacking.
- Frankion 2y agoBecause he is? 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.
- dazilcher 2y agoThe 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.
- conception 2y agoHumans make mistakes. The good ones fix them, and update the number. The bad ones update the link the hide their error and keep the old number. “Our government has typos that get fixed!” is not the zing you think it is either.
- KevinMS 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y agoIt looks like doge just taking credit for the switch from 8 billion to 8 million that happened two days after Trump took office
- JohnTHaller 2y agoEven better, it was already public. Like basically everything on DOGE's fake savings site listing the things they've 'found'. Literally already published on a US government site: https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_70CMSD22A00000008_7012 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_70CMSD22A00000008...
- johnnyanmac 2y agoCan we do anything about a government agency making such a gross lie?
- alsoforgotmypwd 2y agoCall your Senators and House representatives at (202) 224-3121.
- croes 2y agoWhich agency?
- tmaly 2y agoThis just seems like a case of attacking the messenger
- Aloisius 2y agoThis is an attack on the message and its author, not the messenger.
- Sparyjerry 2y agoAccording to DOGE: 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.
- adastra22 2y agoExcept on this website on Monday.