Elon Musk Mulls £3.9K DOGE Dividends for 78M Taxpayers Using Savings From Reduced Federal Spending

In an X post yesterday, the chief of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, said he "will check with the President" about Azoria CEO James Fishback's idea to deliver "DOGE dividend" cheques to taxpayers.

The proposal calls for returning 20% of the savings generated by DOGE's actions to slash government spending in the form of direct payments to American taxpayers.

"American taxpayers deserve a 'DOGE Dividend': 20% of the money that DOGE saves should be sent back to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check," Fishback said. "We wanted to help make DOGE real for millions of Americans. They deserve a portion of the savings DOGE will deliver under President Trump's leadership." The CEO also suggested using some of the money to reduce the mounting national debt. His investment firm recently unveiled a fund backing businesses that reject DEI initiatives.

DOGE Stimulus Cheques Only If Musk Meets Cost-cutting Goals

However, DOGE dividend cheques could become a reality only if Musk meets his £1.58 trillion government savings target. In case Musk accomplishes his goal and gets Trump to implement Fishback's idea, it would mean returning over £316 million to taxpayers or almost £3,960 for each of the 78 million US households that pay federal income tax.

However, experts highlighted that a DOGE rebate program and the distribution method would need a green light from Congress. They added that lawmakers could prefer to use the extra savings in other ways. Some House Republicans hinted that DOGE savings should be used to lower the national debt, while several might want to use the savings to pay for extensions of tax provisions enacted during Trump's first term.

"If [the DOGE dividend proposal] is real, you have to have a way of estimating and collecting the amounts that are being saved and putting them into some account. Both OMB and CBO would look at that, and then Treasury would then record those amounts," said former OMB official F. Stevens Redburn.

How Much Money Has DOGE Saved To Date?

The DOGE live tracker shows that Musk's actions have led to savings of £43.58 billion or £284.85 per taxpayer to date.

DOGE's actions on the United States Agency for International Development led to £5.18 billion in savings. Elsewhere, cost-cutting actions for the Department of Education and the Social Security program translated to savings of £397.73 million and £184.08 million, respectively.

Other major cost reductions were observed in the Department of Agriculture and Homeland Security. Furthermore, DOGE is planning cost-cutting actions for the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Musk's plan to overhaul federal entitlements, including the Social Security program, supposedly to lower fraud, has raised concerns over the guarantee of monthly payments.

Overall, Trump's idea of stimulus checks isn't new. During his first term, the government sent two rounds of stimulus checks to millions of Americans to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.