Trump: We May Give Americans 20% of DOGE Savings

Could Americans see some cash from all these DOGE cost-saving measures? President Trump says he's considering the idea, the Wall Street Journal reports. "We're thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens and 20% down to pay back debt," he said at a Saudi Arabia-sponsored gathering of business and tech executives in Miami. "If it were a real-estate balance sheet, the debt is tiny, but we still, we still want to pay it down." He gave no further details. Elon Musk earlier this week responded to a post on X suggesting the same idea, saying, "Will check with the president."

The co-founder of the investment firm who suggested the idea on X estimated that if DOGE hits its targeted savings of $2 trillion, 20% of that is $400 billion, meaning each US household could get about $5,000, CNBC reports. It's not clear how close DOGE is to hitting that savings target at this point, but Musk has admitted in the past that number is a best-case scenario. DOGE has claimed cuts of $55 billion so far, but outside reports indicate that's likely an overestimate, with one report pointing out the department has so far only accounted for $16.6 billion of those cuts. The federal budget for the most recent fiscal year was $6.75 trillion. (More Department of Government Efficiency stories.)