The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced that it has deactivated more than 200,000 credit cards linked to more than a dozen federal agencies following an audit showing they were unused or unneeded.
The announcement comes as the Elon Musk-led agency continues to root out waste, fraud and corruption in the federal government.
“Weekly Credit Card Update! Pilot program with 16 agencies to audit unused/unneeded credit cards,” DOGE wrote on its X account.
DOGE UNCOVERS OVER 4M GOVERNMENT CREDIT CARDS RESPONSIBLE FOR 90M TRANSACTIONS
“After 3 weeks, >200,000 cards have been de-activated. Great progress this past week by @HHSGov [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] @Interior [U.S. Department of the Interior].”
The agency said that at the start of the audit, there were more than 4.6 million active cards/accounts throughout those agencies.
“So still more work to do,” the DOGE team wrote.
It is unclear how much money the taxpayer will save following the cancelations. Last month, DOGE said the 4.6 million credit cards were used for 90 million unique transactions, totaling around $40 billion worth of spending in FY24.
In total, 204,801 credit cards have been canceled, consisting of 171,120 travel cards and 33,681 purchase cards.
The agencies which have had credit cards canceled include the General Services Administration (GSA), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Labor Department, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Education Department, the Interior Department, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Agriculture Department (USDA), NASA, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security, Social Security Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Interior Department saw the largest number of credit card terminations with nearly 20,000 purchase cards and nearly 40,000 travel cards canceled. HHS was second with more than 43,700 travel credit cards and 2,235 purchase cards canceled.
The State Department is the only agency of the 16 which didn’t have any credit cards canceled.
Last month, Musk spoke at President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting and said he is looking to find $1 trillion in savings through DOGE to help slash the national debt, which is around $36.5 trillion.
Musk took aim at what he described as $2 trillion in deficits, stating that America “simply cannot sustain” that amount of debt
“If this continues, the country will go, become de facto bankrupt,” Musk claimed.
Musk described DOGE as “not an optional thing” and argued that it was “central” to reforming the U.S. economy.
Over the weekend, DOGE also identified thousands of cases where more than $300 million in loans were granted to children.
DOGE said it identified that the Small Business Administration (SBA) granted nearly 5,600 loans for $312 million to borrowers whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the loan. The loans were issued in 2020 and 2021 – while the world struggled with the COVID-19 pandemic – and it is unclear what they were used for.
Fox News’ Andrea Margolis and Michael Lee contributed to this report.
