Pentagon Welcomes DOGE

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is now working with the Department of Defense to analyze where to make cuts and reduce waste.

“Great kickoff with @DeptofDefense. Looking forward to working together to safely save taxpayer dollars and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” the DOGE X account said Friday.

Great kickoff with @DeptofDefense.

Looking forward to working together to safely save taxpayer dollars and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 15, 2025

“We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, according to Fox News.

“And I hope to welcome Elon to the Pentagon very soon,” he added.

JUST IN — DOGE meets with Pentagon officials to plan cuts at the biggest U.S. department – CBS

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) February 18, 2025

Per CBS News:

Two defense officials confirmed DOGE personnel’s visit, but the Defense Department declined to comment on who specifically attended those meetings.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters traveling with him in Europe that he was looking forward to working with DOGE.

“We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon, and I hope to welcome Elon to the Pentagon very soon and his team, working in collaboration with us,” Hegseth said last week. “There are waste, redundancies and headcounts in headquarters that need to be addressed.”

The Defense Department has an annual budget of over $800 billion and more than 3 million personnel, including civilian employees and military service members. The nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation notes that defense spending represents nearly half of all discretionary spending in the U.S. — 47% in 2024 — and the U.S. spends more than the next nine countries combined on defense.

BREAKING: DOGE has reportedly gained access to the Pentagon. pic.twitter.com/xcXRQPuvhb

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) February 18, 2025

WATCH:

BREAKING: DOGE has gained access to the Pentagon to begin the largest & most significant audit in history.

According to a DOD official, some DOGE personnel attended meetings in the Pentagon on Friday. – CNN

Defense Secretary Hegseth recently told personnel that an audit was a… pic.twitter.com/ICTbtkjkYp

— George (@BehizyTweets) February 18, 2025

Fox News reports:

The Pentagon employs 3.7 million personnel with a budget exceeding $850 billion, but it has never passed an audit.

Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of Govini, a defense software company, worked for three Defense secretaries going back to Robert Gates. She says the biggest savings will be found in overhauling the decades-old weapons acquisition process, which still uses manual spreadsheets and fax machines.

“I would put a big red bull’s eye on the process by which we manage weapons systems and military platforms,” Murphy Dougherty said in an interview with Fox News. “The defense acquisition process is massively broken…. It’s too slow. I mean, the United States is issuing missile purchases through fax machines. It’s using spreadsheet sheets and data calls in order to get nuclear capable platforms off of production lines.”

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As a result, fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, the F-35, can’t get out of depot because they’re missing parts and the defense industrial base in the U.S. doesn’t produce what they need. The next generation intercontinental ballistic missile, a key part of the nuclear triad, is $35 billion over budget.

“A lot of the weapons systems and the ships, jets, tanks and other capabilities that the department relies on for the military have such complex supply chains that the Department of Defense doesn’t actually know where all of those parts are coming from. And because they’re using spreadsheets to manage the programs overall means they have no ability to see if there are foreign suppliers or in some cases, Chinese suppliers of critical components like microelectronics in our military systems. This is the kind of thing that Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Trump administration are saying, this is no longer acceptable, and that’s what they’re going to root out,” Murphy Dougherty said.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.