DOGE goes after software providers and administrators for chunk federal government cuts

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has only one mission—to reduce federal spending by pinpointing and eliminating wasteful expenditures. 

Since it launched, DOGE has made waves across the country for its cost-cutting measures, and it has created a frugal fiscal climate in the government, which has forced agencies like the DoD and the HHS to clean up their acts or be put on blast by the efficiency officers at DOGE.

Elon Musk is taking his job of running President Donald Trump’s federal cost-cutting effort via DOGE very seriously. According to him, all his activities with DOGE will help the country cut down government spending by $1 trillion before the end of May.

It is an ambitious task, especially considering all the pushback and the fact that it would require cutting more than half of the $1.8 trillion the US spent on non-defense discretionary programs in 2024.

“I think we will accomplish most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk said on Baier’s show, Special Report.

In recent weeks, DOGE has now turned its focus to software providers and licenses for its cost-cutting endeavors, and just like many of the government sectors it has audited, the agency found waste there, too.

DOGE vs government software contractors

As part of the Pentagon’s latest cost-cutting efforts, the Department of Defense revealed plans to revoke its decision to use Oracle Corp. software to manage its civilian workforce.

“This program was intended to streamline a significant portion of the department’s legacy human resources information technology stack — an important mission we still need to achieve,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a memo released last week. More spending on the project “would be throwing more good taxpayer money after bad,” he explained.

He also wrote that the program and other associated contracts are six years behind schedule and more than $280 million over budget. With the new development, Hegseth wrote that the department has 60 days to develop a new plan for streamlining HR technology operations.

The move comes weeks after DOGE identified some discrepancies in software licenses linked to the General Services Administration. DOGE claimed the agency has nearly three times as many software licenses as employees, which raises concerns about efficiency and spending.

According to a Wired report, the General Services Administration (GSA) has 37,000 WinZip licenses for only 13,000 employees, which suggests potential overspending.

Some have tried to explain it away, arguing that there are valid reasons for the high number of software licenses and suggesting that the situation is more complex than DOGE is letting on. Others have argued that the purported discrepancies between licenses and employees may have been overstated.

Liz Lezius, a spokesperson for the Canadian tech company Alludo, which develops WinZip and was once known as Corel, said licensing for the program depends on the number of devices on which it is installed rather than the number of employees with access to the software. However, she refused to comment on specific customers.

“It is typical that there are more devices than employees in an organization,” Lezius told WIRED.

Another reason this could happen is when suppliers require agencies to buy a bundle of tools just to get access to one they really need, according to Ryan Triplette, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing, an advocacy group of software developers and private sector purchasers fighting what they call restrictive terms.

It is also possible for agencies to also have more licenses than employees to account for budgeting quirks and outside contractors, a former federal official who worked on tech licensing across multiple presidential administrations said.

“What you’re seeing with the DOGE stuff is they are doing cursory work with limited knowledge,” says the ex-official. It “has some salience but is done in a bombastic way to make it seem like they are having more impact.”

Despite what the pros said, the GSA acting press secretary, Will Powell, later revealed that the agency is reviewing contracts and resources in support of the Trump administration’s frugal priorities.

The DOGE account on X would also later share that the GSA had taken action “by deleting 114,163 unused software licenses & 15 underutilized / redundant software products — for a total annual savings of $9.6M.”

What happened with the GSA and Oracle has left software makers that sell to the US government on high alert for any impact from federal cost-cutting efforts. With Musk on a cost-cutting rampage with DOGE, many worry about future cancellations.

Are the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts working?

That depends on who you ask. Both Trump and Musk insist that they have been able to save billions in taxpayer dollars with DOGE and the administration’s overall effort, but there are those who disagree.

A quick glance at the DOGE official website reveals that the agency has reportedly saved up to $130 billion, with $807 saved per taxpayer. The site also contains a leaderboard of agencies where it has saved the most money.

The agency at the top of the list is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.

Thank you @POTUS for your steadfast leadership in issuing an executive order that mandates clear, accurate, and actionable healthcare pricing. This executive order will empower patients with the knowledge they need to make informed health decisions. At @HHSgov, we are fulfilling… pic.twitter.com/HKmbgCa7rs

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) February 26, 2025

He is one of Trump’s most controversial nominees and recently made headlines for laying off about 25% of all the federal workers who oversee Medicare, Medicaid, the National Institute for Health, the Food & Drug Administration, and most other federal health programs.

He tagged it a cost-cutting effort,t but has been getting heat from the public as many argue that the total savings from the staffing cuts will pay for just 0.5% of President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

It will also represent less than 0.2% of Elon Musk’s promised “$1 trillion” in MAGA savings through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Kennedy made the announcement on Thursday, sharing his plans to slash the workforce of the Department of Health and Human Services from 82,000 to 62,000, with 10,000 of those cuts as a result of direct layoffs and the rest from early retirement and other programs.

The controversial Trump ally also revealed he was launching a massive reorganization in the department, which would involve cutting the number of divisions almost in half, from 28 to 15, and closing half the 10 regional offices.

According to him, this “will save taxpayers $1.8 billion,” even though the department’s total budget last year was $1.74 trillion.

The fact that his actions will save only a fraction of DOGE’s lofty goals raises fundamental questions about what people are now calling “MAGA math.”

Since the HHS is the most expensive single department in the federal government and could only save such a paltry amount from the radical slashing of the entire HHS budget, people are wondering how Musk plans to extract $1 trillion in savings from the entire budget.

Some believe RFK Jr’s cuts at the HHS reflect his desire to give more power to scientists and doctors rather than administrators. Even if that were the case, it could be good in terms of reducing bureaucracy, but it will still fall way short of its saving goals.

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