At DOGE Risk: Pentagon’s 400,000 contracts to be scrutinized for "additional savings" and ...

Elon Musk is out of DOGE, but this seems to no way mean that the DOGE-linked layoffs or cuts too have gone. According to a report by Bloomberg, the Pentagon is preparing for its in-house

DOGE team

to examine almost half a million contracts and grants in a bid to trim waste.The Pentagon is reportedly gearing up to review more than 400,000 contracts and grants in a massive effort to find and cut wasteful spending. The report quotes recent budget documents. This initiative is being led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a unit that has continued its work despite the departure of its founder, Elon Musk.

DOGE looking for additional savings

The goal is to find "additional savings" in contracts for fiscal year 2026 and beyond. As these savings are identified, the Pentagon plans to ask Congress to shift the money to other programs. A Pentagon spokesperson told Bloomberg that the in-house DOGE team, which consists of about a dozen people, is "absolutely for certain" to continue its work.

While the Pentagon hasn't disclosed how many contracts DOGE has already reviewed, its budget book cites 390 contracts that have been "terminated or adjusted." Separately, a database maintained by DOGE.gov shows about 600 canceled or adjusted defense contracts, claiming more than $20 billion in savings. This is significantly more than an outside analysis by Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute, who tallied about $11 billion in savings.

DOGE employees illegally accessed government data, claim critics

Critics, however, have raised concerns about DOGE's "slash-and-burn" methods and a lack of transparency. Lawsuits also allege that DOGE employees illegally accessed government data at other agencies. Harrison pointed out that because a large portion of the Pentagon's budget goes to labor, "the main way they are likely to save money is by cutting people."Harrison also questions the feasibility of reviewing such a large number of contracts. "The only way they will be able to get through reviewing 400,000 contracts over the next year is to use some sort of automated generic algorithm," he said, noting that a proper, in-depth review of each contract would take far too long for the current DOGE staff.