The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has suspended more than half a million federal credit cards in its ongoing effort to slash government spending.
The task force, led by billionaire Elon Musk and launched by President Donald Trump earlier this year, announced that credit cards from 32 federal agencies have been deactivated as part of the initiative.
Why It Matters
Created through an executive order upon Trump’s return to office in January, DOGE was tasked with reducing workforce size and eliminating inefficiencies. With $40 billion in annual federal spending previously flowing through these credit cards, DOGE’s deactivation campaign aimed to reduce non-essential expenses that can quietly add up across various departments.
What To Know
In a statement released on Wednesday in a post by on X, formerly Twitter, DOGE said that the number of cards suspended in the audit has now passed half a million, meaning over a tenth of all government credit cards have been deactivated by DOGE.
“The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 32 agencies. After 10 weeks, more than 500K cards have been deactivated,” the statement said.
“As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do.”
DOGE first revealed in March that it had suspended 200,000 cards across 16 agencies. Since then, the effort has more than doubled, now spanning 32 agencies and over 500,000 deactivations.
However, cuts of this scale have already resulted in operational challenges. For example, when cuts were made to the Transportation Security Administration’s cards in March, officials were temporarily unable to make purchases to support bomb-sniffing dog units.
“Credit card purchases have been restricted for 30 days,” a TSA spokesperson told Newsweek at the time, adding, “but canine operations have not been adversely affected by this effort.”
What People Are Saying
Michael Ryan, founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, previously told Newsweek that cutting access to federal credit cards is not without risks, saying: “These aren’t your typical consumer credit cards. We’re looking at lifelines for federal agencies—cards that keep the lights on, quite literally. Need to book a last-minute flight for a critical meeting? There’s a card for that.
“Emergency maintenance part for a military vehicle? Yep, another card. Office supplies for a research lab working on something that could change the world? You guessed it—another card.”
What Happens Next
DOGE indicated that the work is far from complete. The agency has said that additional cuts to the credit card program will continue as it pushes toward a more streamlined federal financial system.
“Still more work to do,” the agency said in its post on X.
The post DOGE Deactivates Over 500,000 Credit Cards appeared first on Newsweek.
