Donald Trump is considering Elon Musk’s pitch to give American taxpayers a ‘DOGE dividend’ amid ongoing efforts to claw back billions of dollars of wasteful spending.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has taken an ax to government departments with an edict to do whatever it takes to root out waste and fraud.
On Tuesday, the billionaire Tesla founder and ‘First Buddy’ vowed to ‘check with the president’ after investment firm CEO James Fishback suggested giving taxpayers a slice of the savings in the form of a tax refund.
Trump responded on Wednesday to confirm he was weighing its benefits, which Fishback had calculated could result in every taxpayer receiving $5,000.
Speaking from Miami Beach, Trump said: ‘There’s even under consideration a new concept where we give 20 per cent of the DOGE savings to American citizens.’
He said another 20 percent would go toward ‘paying down debt.’
‘The numbers are incredible, Elon, so many billions – hundreds of billions – and we’re thinking about giving 20 per cent back to the American citizens,’ he added.
If it goes ahead, the policy has the potential to put thousands of dollars back into the pockets of taxpayers at a time when rising costs are making it increasingly difficult for middle Americans to stay afloat.
President Trump is considering Elon Musk’s pitch to give American taxpayers a ‘DOGE dividend’ amid ongoing efforts to claw back billions of dollars of wasteful spending
On Tuesday, the billionaire Tesla founder and ‘First Buddy’ vowed to ‘check with the president after investment firm CEO James Fishback suggested giving taxpayers a slice of the savings in the form of a tax refund
‘If you look at value, if it were real estate, the balance sheet debt is tiny but we still want to pay it down.’
Trump said the initiative could encourage Americans to ‘report where there’s waste. They’ll be reporting it themselves and participate in the process of saving money.’
DOGE revealed Tuesday that Trump has saved taxpayers a staggering $55 billion in less than a month.
The bulk of the savings were reportedly found through a combination of detecting and deleting fraud, canceling contracts and leases, and selling assets.
In response to the achievement, Fishback wrote on X: ‘President Trump and @ElonMusk should announce a ‘DOGE Dividend’—a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE.’
Musk responded, assuring Fishback he would ‘check with the President.’
Fishback added: ‘American taxpayers deserve a ‘DOGE Dividend’: 20% the money that DOGE saves should be sent back to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check.
‘It was their money in the first place! At $2 trillion in DOGE savings and 78 million tax-paying households, this is a $5,000 refund per household, with the remaining used to pay down the national debt. Elon Musk, let’s do this! This is how we rebuild trust in our government.’
Democrat protesters claim Musk is an unelected oligarch who should not be trusted to access data from the federal government
DOGE has vowed to provide updates on savings figures twice a week, promising additional information and improvements with time.
To date, savings have mostly been made in the US Agency For International Development (USAID), the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) targets, programs and training days across the entirety of federal government accounted for a huge saving, and was among the first tasks DOGE conducted after Trump returned to the White House.
Elon Musk and DOGE’s efforts to reduce government waste have sparked outage among Democrats and government workers, who are protesting in the streets.
Critics maintain Musk is an unelected oligarch who should not be trusted to access data from the federal government.
On Monday, the White House clarified in court papers that Musk’s title was ‘senior adviser to the president’ and that he is ‘not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.’
‘In his role as senior adviser to the president, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisers,’ the court filing noted, adding that he had ‘no actual or formal authority’ to make government decisions by himself.
Trump has endorsed Musk’s work as a result of his election mandate to cut government spending and reduce the federal workforce.
‘We got elected to, among other things, find all of this fraud, abuse, all of this horrible stuff going on,’ he said in the Oval Office last week.