The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to have “recovered” $1.9 billion in misallocated Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds, the agency announced on X Friday. While DOGE attempted to redact sensitive details in the shared documents, some information may have been unintentionally exposed.
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The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to have “recovered” $1.9 billion in misallocated Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds, the agency announced on X Friday.
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While DOGE attempted to redact sensitive details in the shared documents, some information may have been unintentionally exposed.
In the post, DOGE posted the message, “$1.9 billion of HUD money was just recovered after being misplaced during the Biden administration due to a broken process. These funds were earmarked for the administration of financial services, but were no longer needed,” alongside two redacted documents.
HUD Secretary Scott Turner collaborated with the department to resolve the issue, allowing the funds to be de-obligated and redirected by the Treasury.
Elon Musk, who is said to lead DOGE, shared an earlier version of the post an hour before it was edited to include redacted documents, commenting, “It is astounding how much taxpayer money can be saved with even a small amount of effort.”
The original post shared two screenshots of a HUD-issued contract modification involving mortgage servicers Selene Finance in Dallas, Texas, and Carrington Mortgage Services in Anaheim, California. These documents revealed tax information and addresses.
Carrington Mortgage Services clarified the situation in a statement to Inman, “We believe what DOGE discovered was money that was allocated to Carrington under a previous, expired contract to meet servicing obligations.
“This budgeted allocation was never used by us in undertaking our contracted duties. Contrary to any assertions of waste of U.S. Government funds, these amounts actually represent a savings of Government funds by not utilizing all available funding related to the services performed under the contract. We appreciate DOGE’s efforts and look forward to working with them in the future.”
Inman has reached out to Selene Finance for comment and will update this story as needed.
DOGE’s announcement comes as part of the Trump administration’s broader push to reduce federal costs, which includes HUD’s planned layoffs of approximately 4,800 employees.
On its official website, DOGE claims to have saved taxpayers $55 billion through Feb. 17, through a combination of fraud detection, contract cancellations and renegotiations, asset sales, workforce reductions and regulatory savings.
But Musk, DOGE and the Trump administration have made claims that later proved to be false or misleading — DOGE did not actually prevent $50 million in taxpayer funds from being used to buy condoms for Hamas, for example.
NPR reported last week it had discovered “errors, omissions and lingering questions about the accuracy and scale of the massive savings claimed by DOGE in recent days.”
Government oversight experts told NBC News‘s Suzy Khimm that Musk has “highlighted some legitimate, long-standing problems that the federal government has failed to address under both parties.”
But waste, fraud and abuse “are not interchangeable terms,” Politifact noted in a Feb. 13 report looking into Trump and Musk’s claims to have uncovered fraud.
“Nothing they have identified is, to my knowledge, evidence of ‘fraud’ or ‘corruption.’ Fraud and corruption are crimes,” Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University, told Politifact. “This administration simply has different spending priorities than the last administration. But to label all of it as fraud or corruption is extremely misleading.”
Since the late 1970s, it’s been up to inspectors general at HUD and other government agencies to root out waste, fraud and abuse. Trump fired 17 inspectors general on Jan. 25 — including HUD Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis — although many have sued to get their jobs back, Politifact noted.
“We’re conflating the difference between waste and fraud, I think, in an irresponsible and reckless way,” former Obama and Trump administration inspector general Bob Westbrooks told NBC News. “It’s causing agencies to be shut down. It’s causing people to lose their jobs.”
Meanwhile, The Hill reported on Tuesday that while Musk is said to lead DOGE, he’s not officially a part of the agency.
According to a court filing from Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, Musk is a senior adviser to the president but has no formal authority to make government decisions.
“Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself,” Fisher said, as reported by The Hill. “Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a discussion of the accuracy of DOGE’s claims.
Email Richelle Hammiel
