The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken credit on its website for ending a government office lease formerly used by President Jimmy Carter as part of its cost-cutting efforts, though it remains unclear whether the move was actually their doing.
The DOGE website lists the cancellation of the lease at The Carter Center in Atlanta as part of its “total estimated savings” of $55 billion. However, analysis of federal records suggests that the lease was automatically terminated following Carter’s death, in accordance with the Former Presidents Act (FPA), rather than due to DOGE’s intervention.
Newsweek reached out to DOGE and the Carter Center for comment on Thursday but has not yet received a response.
Why It Matters
Since its inception, DOGE, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has been dogged by questions about its transparency. The quasi-government agency was established by an executive order that essentially just renamed the U.S. Digital Service, with Musk’s official role overseeing the operation even more opaque.
DOGE has created a website that claims to show where it has found cost savings — current estimated on the site at $55 billion — but the data that has been uploaded so far is riddled with errors, including one entry that claimed $8 billion in savings from cancelling a single ICE contract. The contract was actually for $8 million.
What to Know
On Monday, the DOGE.gov website was officially launched, listing more than 1,100 contracts that DOGE claims to have canceled, along with 97 government leases that are either being terminated or not renewed. These are showcased on what the agency calls its “Wall of Receipts.”
Among the reported savings, DOGE included the termination of a government lease, citing $128,233 in savings under “allowance to former presidents.” The agency took credit for closing a nearly 7,700-square-foot office in Atlanta, but critics argue that it may be overstating its role in the decision.
Nick Bednar, a legal scholar tracking DOGE’s actions, called the claim misleading.
“DOGE is not responsible for the termination of this lease,” he wrote in a post on Bluesky.
Data from the General Services Administration (GSA) reviewed by Newsweek confirms that a property of the same size, leased from President Jimmy Carter’s foundation, the Carter Center, cost $128,233 annually.
Under the Former Presidents Act (FPA), government-funded benefits—including office space—end upon a former president’s death. Since Carter passed away on December 29, 2024, his allowance was already set to expire on December 30, meaning the lease would have been terminated regardless of DOGE’s involvement.
Questions Raised Over DOGE’s Claims
A report in the publication Lawfare, authored by Bednar, also found that DOGE’s website lists cost-saving measures without specifying how they were achieved. He cited the Carter Center lease as an example, noting that the office was already slated for closure before DOGE took credit for the savings.
Despite this, DOGE included the lease termination in its reported $55 billion in cost savings, raising concerns that it may be taking credit for routine government actions rather than implementing meaningful cuts.
Bednar further suggests that DOGE’s cost-saving claims rely more on repackaging publicly available government data than on actual budget reductions.
“Government data is readily available to anyone who might want it, including others who work with and for the government. DOGE appears to be repackaging publicly available data and displaying it on its website,” according to the report in Lawfare.
“Even if DOGE played an active role in terminating some of these contracts, it may be overstating the value of its cuts,” Bednar said.
What People Are Saying
Nick Bednar, associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, in Lawfare: “Musk has touted DOGE’s transparency. Much of its “transparency,” however, is political theater. DOGE has not offered a meaningful explanation of what it is doing and why it is doing it. The fact that the media and the public have come to rely on leaks from civil servants about DOGE’s activities underscores this problem”.
Elon Musk, head of DOGE, in a press conference earlier this month: “We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible. I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.”
What Happens Next
DOGE is poised to continue making deep cuts across the federal government. Musk has claimed he could eliminate “at least $2 trillion” in government spending by targeting “waste,” an amount that equates to roughly 30 percent of total federal expenditures.
On Wednesday evening, President Trump suggested that DOGE might return a portion of the savings from job cuts and other budget reductions to American taxpayers, though he did not specify how this would be implemented.
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