The US government’s efficiency (DOGE) department led by the billionaire and White House advisor Elon Musk has neutralized more than 2 lakh federal government credit cards to streamline the expenditure.
The move, declared on X (East Twitter) a few days ago, made a wide push to reduce administrative costs and overhala to government expenditure practices.
Why Doge has deactivated the credit card
Dogge first said on 18 February that he was working with agencies to simplify government credit card accounts and eliminate unnecessary expenditure.
According to the department’s estimates, the federal government had about 4.6 million active credit cards, which provided about 90 million transactions during the financial year of 2024.
A week later, US President Donald Trump strengthened the effort by signing an executive order to reopen the federal expenses. The order affected several departments and placed 30-day freeze on the agency employee credit card.
In his latest update a few days ago, Dogi said that after three weeks of audit of 16 federal agencies, more than 200,000 credit cards were deactivated.
Weekly Credit Card Update!
Pilot program with 16 agencies to audit unused/unnecessary credit cards. After 3 weeks,> 200,000 cards have been de-activated. Great progress this last week @Hhsgov @Interior
As a reminder, at the beginning of the audit, ~ 4.6m was active … pic.twitter.com/xzazj51aov
– Department of Government Efficiency (@Doge) March 11, 2025
Last week, the agency announced the cancellation of around 1.46 lakh cards.
Commenting on the case, Elon Musk said, “There are about twice the credit/purchasing cards as people in the government, and the boundary is $ 10,000! Many shady expenditure is being incurred. ,
There are still almost double credit/purchasing cards as people in the government, and the limit is $ 10,000!
Many shady expenditure is being incurred.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2025
Efforts to streamline federal expenses
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have long made champions to reduce government expenditure. While the credit card freeze order involves discounts for employees engaged in disaster relief, natural disaster response and other important services, reports suggest that it disrupts regular operation in many federal agencies.
For example, employees of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have faced difficulties in purchasing the necessary laboratory supply, which are important to ensure consumer security, according to Wired and Washington Post.
In addition, citizens in the Defense Department have been affected by a huge reduction in their government travel credit card limit.
A memorandum of March 5 showed that these boundaries were cut only to $ 1, with exemption for a trip supporting only online military operations or permanent station changes.
Despite these measures, Dogge has not disclosed the estimated financial savings resulting from cancellation, which question the real impact of many initiatives.
Impact on federal agencies
According to a report by Newsweek, similar reasons for reaps in similar previous costs, such as large -scale trimmed within federal agencies, have no financial benefits.
What is you?
Established on 20 January through an executive order, Dogi is a newly formed advisory body that works with reducing the disabilities of the federal government. Since its inception, the department has pushed to the rigorous workforce deduction.
