After an audit revealed that the cards were not used or needed, DOGE announced it had deactivated over 200,000 credit card numbers linked to federal agencies.

This announcement is made as Elon Musk’s agency, which leads the federal government in tackling waste and fraud, continues its efforts.

Weekly Credit Card Update: “DOGE has posted on its X-Account that it is piloting a program to audit unused/unnecessary credit cards with 16 agencies.”

“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].”

At the beginning of the audit, the agency reported that there were over 4.6 million active accounts/cards across all agencies.

The DOGE team stated that there was still work to be done.

It’s uncertain how much the cancellations will save the taxpayer. DOGE reported last month that 4.6 million credit cards had been used in 90 million transactions totaling $40 billion in expenditures during FY24.

A total of 204,801 credit cards were canceled. This includes 171,120 cards for travel and 33,681 cards for purchases.

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. 

Interior Department had the most credit cards terminated, with over 20,000 travel and purchase cards cancelled. HHS ranked second, with over 43,700 travel credit cards and 2235 purchase cards cancelled.

State Department was the one agency out of 16 that did not have credit cards cancelled.

Musk said last month that he was looking for $1 trillion of savings via DOGE in order to reduce the nation’s debt, which stands at around $36.5 trillion.

Musk criticized the $2 trillion deficit, saying that America could not “support” such a debt.

Musk said that if the situation continues, “the country will become de facto insolvent.”

Musk said that DOGE was not an option and that its role in reforming the U.S. economic system is “central”.

DOGE identified over the weekend thousands of cases in which more than 300 million worth of loans were given to children.

DOGE reported that it had identified the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) grant of nearly 5,600 $312m loans to borrowers who were 11 or younger when the loan was granted. These loans were made in 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 epidemic was raging around the globe. It is not known what the money was used for.