DOGE Promised $460 Million in Lease Cuts. It Delivered Less Than a Third.

Hundreds of Office Closures Quietly Reversed

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency swept into Washington in January 2025 with a chainsaw and a promise: slash trillions from federal spending.

Real estate seemed like the easy target.

Nearly 900 lease terminations went out to federal offices across the country. Then the calls started coming in from agencies that still needed those buildings.

What followed was a months-long scramble to undo the damage, and by December, even Musk admitted the whole effort was only “somewhat successful.”

900 Notices Sent, 260 Finalized

The General Services Administration sent out about 900 lease termination notices in the early weeks of the Trump administration.

By year’s end, only about 260 of those terminations actually went through.

GSA employees told reporters that overall, the agency finalized about 30% of the lease terminations it sent to landlords.

The gap between what DOGE announced and what it delivered became a pattern that would define the entire effort.

Savings Drop From $460M to $140M

DOGE had been claiming for weeks that it terminated 700 government leases, saving over $460 million.

But in mid-March, the group quietly removed 136 cancellations from its website overnight, reducing its claimed savings by around $140 million.

By October, the DOGE website listed 384 lease terminations with an estimated $140 million in savings, less than a third of the original figure.

Public-Facing Offices Almost Shuttered

The leases removed from DOGE’s termination list included about 50 Social Security offices and 24 IRS locations.

GSA officials discovered that many of the terminated leases were for public-facing buildings that were never supposed to be part of the cuts.

These were offices where Americans filed for benefits, paid taxes, and accessed federal services in person.

GSA Told Landlords "Just Kidding"

One GSA employee described the aftermath bluntly:

“We are reaching out to lessors, and for the most part, in better terms saying, ‘Just kidding. We would like to cancel that termination.”

Regional offices were told not to engage with customers around the downsizing, while headquarters issued terminations without input from the field.

Staff called it cleaning up the mess.

Classified Workspaces Nearly Lost

Government Accountability Office facilities in Atlanta, Huntsville, and Norfolk were initially slated for termination.

These offices handle sensitive national security work in spaces equipped to share classified information. GSA walked back those terminations after the notices went out, restoring lease dates through 2028 and 2029.

The Huntsville office focuses on weapons systems reviews.

Agencies Learned From the News

Some tenant agencies were not notified before their leases were terminated.

One large private owner with GSA leases in more than 20 states said he was notified of a cancellation for a Social Security office, then told three or four days later it was reversed.

Brokers described the process as pure chaos with conflicting messages and communication black holes.

Return to Office, But Where?

Federal workers were ordered to return to the office full-time while DOGE simultaneously eliminated the buildings they were supposed to work in.

DOGE officials said the return-to-office push was “not alone an acceptable reason” to ask for more space.

The IRS conceded in a memo that some of its facilities did not have enough room to accommodate returning employees.

Verified Savings Fell Far Short

NPR’s analysis found that DOGE’s verifiable savings from contracts and leases totaled about $2 billion, less than three hundredths of a percent of last fiscal year’s federal spending.

According to an August analysis of $32.7 billion in contract savings DOGE claimed it could verify, Politico estimated actual savings at $1.4 billion.

The gap between claims and reality only widened with scrutiny.

Typos and Double Counting Everywhere

An $8 billion contract listed on DOGE’s website was actually worth $8 million, a typo that cut claimed savings in half when corrected.

DOGE took credit for canceling the same Energy Department grant twice, adding $500 million in duplicate savings.

One contract DOGE claimed to have ended had actually been terminated by the Biden administration weeks before DOGE began its work.

Property Losses Exceeded Savings

Yale researchers found that potential losses from DOGE’s lease cancellations to the Washington DC commercial real estate market alone could reach $575 million over five years.

That drop in value would translate into $50 million in lost property tax revenues for the city. In March 2025, when termination rates were highest, the DC metro savings would have been just $76 million.

Musk Says He Would Skip It

In December 2025, Musk admitted DOGE was only “somewhat successful” in a podcast interview. When asked if he would do it again, he said no.

“Instead of doing DOGE, I would have, basically, built… worked on my companies,” he said.

DOGE was initially scheduled to run through July 2026. The Trump administration quietly disbanded it in November.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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