Last week, Elon Musk indicated for the first time that his Department of Government Efficiency was falling short of its goal.

He previously said his powerful budget-cutting team could reduce the next fiscal year’s federal budget by $1 trillion, and do it by Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Instead, in a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Musk said that he anticipated the group would save about $150 billion, 85% less than its objective.

Even that figure may be too high, according to a New York Times analysis of DOGE’s claims.

That’s because, when Musk’s group tallies up its savings so far, it inflates its progress by including billion-dollar errors, by counting spending that will not happen in the next fiscal year — and by making guesses about spending that might not happen at all.

One of the group’s largest claims, in fact, involves canceling a contract that did not exist. Although the government says it had merely asked for proposals in that case, and had not settled on a vendor or a price, Musk’s group ignored that uncertainty and assigned itself a large and very specific amount of credit for canceling it.

It said it had saved exactly $318,310,328.30.

Musk’s group has now triggered mass firings across the government, and sharp cutbacks in humanitarian aid around the world. Musk has justified those disruptions with two promises: that the group would be transparent, and that it would achieve budget cuts that others called impossible.

Now, watching the group pare back its aims and puff up its progress, some of its allies have grown doubtful about both.

“They’re just spinning their wheels, citing in many cases overstated or fake savings,” said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “What’s most frustrating is that we agree with their goals. But we’re watching them flail at achieving them.”

Musk’s group did not respond to questions about its claims sent via X, his social-media platform. Musk previously acknowledged the group might make errors but said they would be corrected.

The White House press office defended the team, saying it had compiled “massive accomplishments,” but declined to address specific instances where the group seemed to have inflated its progress.

Musk actually promised an even larger reduction last year. When he was Donald Trump’s most prominent supporter on the campaign trail, he said he could cut $2 trillion from a federal budget of about $7 trillion. After Trump was elected and Musk’s group began its work, Musk lowered that goal to $1 trillion.

Even after Musk’s comments in Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, a White House official indicated that this target had not changed.

Budget analysts had been deeply skeptical of these claims, saying it would be difficult to cut that much without disrupting government services even further, or drastically altering popular benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Musk’s group has provided an online ledger of its budget cuts, which it calls the “Wall of Receipts.” The site was last updated Tuesday, to show an “estimated savings” of $150 billion.

The ledger is riddled with omissions and flaws.

While Musk said Thursday that his group would save $150 billion in fiscal 2026 alone, the website does not say explicitly when its savings would be realized. The site also gives no identifying details about $92 billion of its claimed savings, which is more than 60% of the total.

The rest of the savings are itemized, attributed to cancellations of specific federal grants, contracts or office leases. But these detailed listings have been plagued with data errors, which have inflated the group’s savings by billions.

Musk’s group has deleted some of its original errors, like entries that triple-counted the same savings, a claim that confused “billion” with “million,” and items that claimed credit for canceling contracts that ended when George W. Bush was president.

Still, some expensive mistakes remain.

The second-largest savings that the group lists on its site comes from a canceled IRS contract that DOGE says saved $1.9 billion. But the contract it cites was actually canceled when Joe Biden was president. The third-largest savings that the group claims comes from a canceled grant to a vaccine nonprofit. Musk’s group says that saved $1.75 billion. But the nonprofit said it had actually been paid in full, so the savings was $0.

Musk’s group also claimed credit for canceling a contract that was not a contract at all.

It involved a request for proposal that the Office of Personnel Management had published, seeking bids for help with human-resources work.

When announcing these requests, government agencies describe the work they want done. Contractors submit proposals, with both a plan and a price. The government can choose one vendor, or several. Even after that, it often negotiates with them to push the price below their original bids.

Details about this particular request were scarce: Musk’s group provided a tracking number for the request, 47QFEA24K0008. But the Times was not able to find that number in databases of previous government solicitations. The Office of Personnel Management declined to release the request, or say what it had planned to spend on the contract, nor would the office say when it planned to choose a contractor.