Elon Musk described a series of basic financial controls he says would dramatically improve federal accountability, arguing that a small structural change could save between $100 billion and $200 billion a year.
In a detailed explanation, Musk said the approach grew out of what he called “a very interesting side quest” that exposed him to how federal money moves inside government systems.
Musk said many federal payments historically lacked the most elementary identifiers, creating conditions where oversight was not possible.
“There’s been quite a few efficiencies. I mean, some of them are very basic efficiencies, like just adding in requirements for federal payments that that any given payment must have an assigned congressional payment code and a comment field with something in it that’s more than nothing,” he said.
He added that “that trivial, trivial seeming change” likely saves “100 billion dollars, or even $200 billion a year.”
According to Musk, large numbers of federal payments had been sent “with no no congressional payment code and with nothing in the comment field,” a situation he said left auditors without information needed to verify expenditures.
He pointed to the current Department of War, noting that “if they say, like, Why can the Defense Department or now the word Department of War, why can it not pass an audit just because the information is not there? Is not there, it doesn’t have the information necessary to pass an audit does not exist, is the issue?”
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Musk said the steps taken through Doge were straightforward measures any responsible institution would normally apply.
“A bunch of things Doge did were just very common sense, things that would be normal for any organization that cared about financial responsibility. That’s, that’s, that’s most of what was done, you know, and still going on, by the way, those are still happening.”
He also described the pushback that followed efforts to stop improper payments.
“It turns out, when you stop fraudulent and wasteful payments, the fraudsters don’t, you know, confess to us, they actually start yelling all sorts of nonsense that you’re stuffing essential payments to need needy people,” Musk said.
He explained that requests often arrived framed as charitable or humanitarian causes, but basic verification exposed inconsistencies.
Musk recounted examples of payment requests claiming to support overseas recipients but listing domestic wire instructions.
“It really be like, this is going to children in Africa. And I’m like, yeah. But then why are the wiring instructions for Deloitte nutrition, Washington, DC? Because that’s not Africa,” he said.
When asked to connect officials with the stated recipients, Musk said the response was “silence.”
He added, “We’re not going to send the money unless we can talk to the recipients and confirm they will actually get it.”
Musk said fraudulent organizations typically rely on emotionally appealing narratives rather than openly stating their intentions.
“Fraudsters necessarily will come up with a very, you know, sympathetic argument. They’re not going to say, give us the money for fraud,” he said.
He pointed to fabricated nonprofit efforts designed to appear legitimate.
“They’re going to start an NGO, and then, yeah, they’re going to see NGOs. It’s gonna be like, the Save the baby pandas, NGO, which of like, who doesn’t want to save the baby pandas? They’re adorable. But then there’s no, it turns out no pandas are being saved.”
Musk said that when asked to verify the activity of such groups, the organizations could not produce evidence.
“Can you send us a picture of the panda? Like, no. Okay. How do we know it’s going through the fantasy, that’s all I’m saying.”
WATCH:
🇺🇸 ELON: DOGE IS STILL QUIETLY SAVING HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS
They’re requiring 2 tiny fields on every federal payment:
1. A proper congressional authorization code
2. A comment field that actually says somethingThat’s it.
And suddenly, hundreds of billions in pure fraud… pic.twitter.com/bKmiBza32r
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 1, 2025
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