What Is a ‘DOGE Dividend’?

The internet was abuzz on Wednesday with talk of a “DOGE dividend,” a direct payment to U.S. taxpayers funded by the Department of Government Efficiency’s savings. 

The idea of a DOGE dividend has been circulating on the internet for some time, but it caught DOGE leader Elon Musk’s attention on Tuesday. James Fishback, the founder of “free-thinking investment firm” Azoria, proposed, in a post to Musk’s social media platform X, that DOGE send U.S. taxpayers 20% of the money saved through its cost cuts. “Will check with the President,” Musk replied.

Fishback estimated the government could send each household that pays federal income tax a check for $5,000, assuming DOGE cuts $2 trillion from the federal budget. (Musk, who threw out the $2 trillion target in November, has since cast doubt on the likelihood of saving that much.) 

Musk on Wednesday followed up on the idea. Responding to an X post lamenting the possibility of “our government treating DOGE ‘savings’ as their new piggy bank,” Musk said, “We need to balance the budget as first priority.”

DOGE says on its website that the initiative has so far saved $55 billion. Though its “Wall of Receipts,” a list of all the federal contracts it has canceled, accounts for just $8.6 billion, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Granted, DOGE says its $55 billion figure “is a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings,” some of which, like workforce reductions, can’t be accounted for in the “Wall of Receipts.” 

Trump is no stranger to mailing Americans checks. Trump approved two rounds of stimulus payments in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.