At least 44 of government contracts canceled by Elon Musk’s cost initiative orders have been resurrected by federal services, eliminating more than $ 220 million from the supposed savings of his team, according to an analysis of federal federal data.
But Mr Musk’s team continues to list 43 of these contracts as “finishes” on his website, which he calls a “wall of evidence”. The team even added a few of these days or weeks after their restoration. The result was another in a series of errors on the site that made the team look more successful in reducing government costs than it was.
The White House says it is a lag behind bureaucracy that will be restored.
The renewed contracts ranged from small dollar agreements on software licenses in large partnerships with sellers who managed the government’s data and records. Most of the contracts were canceled in February and March, when Mr Musk’s team, the government efficiency, demanded that the services to make huge cuts in spending and staff.
Then their organizations reinstated, sometimes a few days later. In one case, the Environmental Protection Service revived a contract after just 2 ½ hours. Mr Musk’s team was still listed that one was canceled for weeks later, even after rejuvenation and then expanded – so that it costs more now.
These reversals depicted not only Mr Musk’s team’s matches to produce precise data on its results, but also the disadvantages of its rapid, mystical approach to reducing spending as part of a sweeping effort to reduce $ 1 trillion by $ 1 trillion.
Contractors said, in his hurry, Mr Musk’s team had set up the assassination of contracts that were unlikely to remain dead. Some were required by law. Others required skills that the government needed, but they did not.
Their reversals raise broader questions about how many of the deep but hasty cuts of the Musk Group budget will be moved back over time, reading its long -term impact on bureaucracy and administration in Washington.
In northern Virginia, government contractor Larry Aldrich was alerted in February that his company, Brennsys, had lost its contract to design web design and produce videos for a veteran website, for Fores for veterans with post -traumatic stress disorder.
“VA cannot do this work on its own,” Aldrich said. “They do not have the human resources or skill set.”
It didn’t last.
“Two weeks later, we got an email saying it was going to be restored,” Mr Aldrich said. “I was like, Wow, someone must have returned and said to them,” We can’t do that. “”
A White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said the reversals showed that the organizations had reassessed cuts they made at the initial impulse to comply with Mr Musk’s instructions.
“The dog’s wall of evidence provides the latest and more accurate information after a thorough evaluation, which takes time,” Mr Fields said. “The updates on the Doge savings page will continue to be made immediately and the sections and organizations will continue to point out the mass savings it achieves.”
Mr Musk’s team has recorded more than 9,400 contracts claiming credit for cancellation for a total of $ 32 billion. Overall, Mr Musk’s team says it has saved taxpayers $ 165 billion.
Compared to this production, Mr Fields said, the twists found by the New York Times were “very small potatoes”.
He refused to say whether the contracts on the group’s list beyond those found in the times had also revived.
The Times revealed these reversals in search of the Federal Procurement Data System, a government system that monitors changes in contracts. The Times were looking for cases where the contracts referred to as canceled on Mr Musk’s website had shown signs of new life, such as additional funding, an extensive timetable or update that included words such as “cancellation” or “reset”.
This search appeared 44 of the costs of the costs, the contracts were killed but then restored to life.
This set may still be underwater, as changes to contracts may take time to appear in the procurement data system and because there is no standard way to detect a repaired contract in this system. Searching the Times may have lost some.
The resurrections began in mid -February.
Raquel Romero and her husband had a contract to provide leadership to lawyers in the agriculture department. They lost it on February 14 and won it four days later.
This was a GodSend for Ms Romero and her husband, providing $ 45,000 in revenue at a time when all other federal companies had disappeared.
“We had lost all the income we designed for 2025 calendar. We had to sell our home.” We just feel really lucky to have this resource to buy some time. “
The Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement that it had restored this contract after discovering that “required by law”. He refused to say which statute. Mrs Romero said she felt that rehabilitation was the product of personal intervention, crediting a senior lawyer in the Department of Georgia, who was an important supporter of his work and her husband.
“All I know is that she retired two weeks later,” Romero said.
Other reversals began to follow.
The Veteran Case Department reinstated 16 contracts, most of any service in the Times analysis.
This section refused to comment on why. However, veterans’ groups noted that some of the canceled contracts involved functions required by law, such as a contractor who helped veterans seek military records to use as proof to acquire benefits.
This contract was restored after eight days.
In the training department, Mr Musk’s team said that it had saved $ 38 million for many years, canceling a contract for the management of a school data repository at national level. However, legislators and defense groups opposed, saying that the law required data collection and that the government needed it to determine which schools were qualified for certain grants, such as some adapted to rural areas.
“They should have used a scalpel,” said Rachel Dinkes of alliance knowledge, a Union of Educational Companies, including the one who lost this contract. “But instead they came in with an ax and cut it all down.”
This grant was restored after 18 days, but with $ 17 million from its possible funding was stripped.
The shortest cancellation included an EPA contract signed in 2023 to pay a Maryland -based company for help raising awareness. SO canceled this contract at 4:31 pm On March 7, according to contract data. He then reinstated the contract – in fact, canceling the cancellation – at 6:58 pm the same night.
Why?
“Any supply of restored reflects that the Agency found that the funding of the action supported the priorities of the administration,” EPA said. The organization refused to give details of this case. Last month, SOE expanded this contract for another year, agreeing to pay $ 171,000 more than before the cancellation. The contractor did not answer questions.
From the beginning of his team’s work, Mr Musk said the government should probably overturn some costs.
“We have to act quickly to stop wasting taxpayers’ billions of money,” Mr Musk told The Joe Rogan Experience in February. “But if we make a mistake, we’ll reverse it quickly.”
But Mr Musk also made a second promise, vital to the execution of the former. He said his team would publish the details of his work on the internet to allow the public to have an accurate and up -to -date picture of what he had cut.
“We can name the details, on the line,” Mr Musk said in the same interview. “We have the evidence. We publish the evidence.”
Times have found many errors on the team’s website from the beginning. Often, these errors inflate the value of the savings that Mr Musk’s team had achieved. Mr Musk promised that the team could make $ 1 trillion in budget cuts this year, but so far it has fallen far from that target. And even these cuts have been inflated due to the inclusion of errors and speculations.
Mr Musk’s team, for example, previously called for a credit for the cancellation of programs that were actually completed or even decades ago. It also doubles the same cancellations and once published a claim that was confused with “billions” and “millions”.
This month, the Times sent the White House a list of dozens of renewed contracts still on the list. Two days later, Mr Musk’s team removed one: the EPA contract canceled for less than one day.
But at the same time, he added five other contracts already assigned to the “finishes” list, supporting the credit for $ 57 million more to savings that had already been transferred back.
