Are Donald Trump and Elon Musk going to send savings from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) back to the American people? Dozens of viral posts claim that the White House is considering a plan to either send Americans $5,000 checks or give taxpayers a $5,000 tax credit, all paid for by DOGE’s cost-cutting measures. “#ElonMusk is proposing a $5,000 tax refund for every American funded by the savings generated from DOGE,” says one Instagram post. A Facebook user shared an article from Forbes headlined “Musk Mulls Sending All Americans $5,000 Checks Using DOGE Savings.”
Musk and Trump have both said that they are considering a plan to return 20 percent of DOGE’s savings to Americans. However, the payments would be limited to Americans who pay net income taxes and are unlikely to be as high as $5,000.
The idea for a “DOGE Dividend” originated Tuesday when James Fishback, an entrepreneur and investor, posted a four-page proposal on X calling for the Trump administration to return 20 percent of DOGE’s total savings to Americans via tax refunds. The plan argues that $5,000 could be returned to each of America’s approximately 79 million households that are net payers of income tax.
Several hours later, Elon Musk responded to the post, saying that he would “check with the President,” about it. By Thursday, the idea had reached Trump who, in a speech at an event in Miami Beach, said that the idea was being considered by the administration. “There’s even, under consideration, a new concept where we give 20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20 percent goes to paying down debt,” Trump said.
While Musk and Trump have said they are considering the plan, it is unlikely that American taxpayers would receive $5,000. The analysis relies on DOGE’s initial $2 trillion savings target, which would provide $400 billion for the proposed “DOGE Dividend.” However, economists question—some seriously—whether $2 trillion in savings is a reasonable, let alone achievable, target. “It is virtually impossible for DOGE to immediately cut $2 trillion from the $7 trillion federal budget,” Jessica Riedl, an economist at the Manhattan Institute, told The Dispatch Fact Check. “Right now, two-thirds of all spending goes to Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans, and interest, all of which has been taken off the table by President Trump. That would force DOGE to eliminate nearly all other spending, including for Medicaid, SNAP, infrastructure, federal prisons, homeland security, embassies, school lunches, disability, public health, nuclear weapons management, student loans, national parks, and border security.” Musk himself walked back his initial $2 trillion target last month, saying in an interview that there was only a good shot of cutting half that amount.
According to Riedl, DOGE also faces significant legal hurdles to such drastic spending cuts. “DOGE does not even have the legal or constitutional authority to impose cuts of this magnitude,” Riedl added. “That would constitute an illegal impoundment. Congress would need to pass such legislation, and the president would have to sign it.”
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