New questions are emerging over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and exactly how much cost-cutting the agency is claiming in the “wall of receipts” it released to the public this week.
The fresh scrutiny was triggered Wednesday when a line item from the DOGE team’s receipts left employees at the National Labor Relations Board office in Buffalo, New York, scrambling for answers after discovering their office was up for cancellation, according to a HuffPost report.
The site, which is said to be documentation of the billions DOGE saved by initiating sweeping budget cuts and mass layoffs throughout the federal government since President Donald Trump returned to the White House one month ago, listed the Buffalo lease as saving $1 million annually due to “true termination-consolidated,” the report said.
But, while staff union at the NLRB were informed Wednesday that employees had 90 days to vacate the office, conflicting news came Thursday saying the Buffalo workers would remain in the same building – but to a smaller office under a plan reportedly arranged by Joe Biden’s White House.
“In other words, the big pile of savings claimed by DOGE might be little more than an accounting trick,” HuffPost said.
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“There’s so little information,” an employee at the Buffalo office told the publication, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “It’s definitely possible they’re claiming they saved money without actually doing anything.”
Musk’s “wall of receipts” also inaccurately stated the square footage of the Buffalo office – which the DOGE site lists as taking up 37,000 square feet when the union said it was more like 10,296 square feet, according to HuffPost.
The NLRB “investigates and prosecutes unfair labor practices committed by employers and unions, and many workers file charges in person or show up seeking advice on their rights,” according to the report. A courtroom is also housed inside the office to facilitate labor trials and space where witnesses are prepared for hearings.
“We are looking into this and do not have any concrete information to provide,” an NLRB spokesperson said in an email to HuffPost when asked for clarity on the Buffalo lease debacle.
Mike Bilik, executive vice president for the NLRB union, told HuffPost the “biggest problem” with the Buffalo site shuttering would be workers being left without a facility to enter and assert their rights under the law.
“It would just cause chaos,” he said.