New DOGE system finds $300M of improper payment requests

The Department of Government Efficiency this week highlighted a new automated payment verification system that it said was bringing a new layer of transparency to the Treasury Department. Over the first week of the new system, a total of $334 million in improper payment requests were identified and rejected, DOGE said. The requests were rejected for missing budget codes or having codes that were invalid or without authorization. DOGE leader Elon Musk and his staffers touted their work at the Treasury Department in an exclusive interview with Fox News published Thursday.

The interview took place at DOGE’s weekly 10 p.m. Wednesday meeting at the Eisenhower Building in Washington. Musk, the tech billionaire, is expected to soon transition from leading DOGE back into the private sector.

How did the treasury pay out money without budget verification? DOGE had previously reported in February that Treasury Department systems didn’t always record budget information when making payments to government departments–leaving about $4.7 trillion in payments difficult to trace.

What other revelations did Elon Musk and DOGE staffers have for Fox News?

• The Institute of Peace had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban for unclear generic services, DOGE staffers said during the interview.

• The Small Business Administration gave about $668 million in loans to people marked as more than 120 or less than 11 years old, according to DOGE.

• The Inter-American Foundation used roughly half of its yearly $50 million budget to promote the marketability of peas in Guatemala and support alpaca farmers in Peru, DOGE said.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on President Trump’s decision to pull funding from broadcasters he deems biased.