Billionaire investor Mark Cuban recently had a lot to say about the Department of Government Efficiency and its recent initiatives.
Cuban initially speculated that Elon Musk‘s team might have been pulling data from USAspending.gov—a public database tracking federal spending—then presenting it as if they had uncovered wasteful expenses themselves. At first, he found the move “brilliant,” even comparing it to Donald Trump’s tactics, saying, “Fooled me. Very Trump like too.” But his opinion quickly changed.
“Not so brilliant,” Cuban wrote in a follow-up post on Bluesky, responding to criticism that DOGE had burned through nearly $7 million in taxpayer funds in just a week. A Roll Call article that Cuban shared reported that money was allocated for “Software Modernization Initiative.”
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As a House Democratic aide explained to the outlet, the DOGE is getting money “to perform work on the agencies’ behalf and using their money to pay for it.”
DOGE was established under a Trump executive order, replacing the U.S. Digital Service and giving Musk authority over government-wide IT upgrades and spending reviews. But critics argue that it does much more—giving Musk access to sensitive government data in his quest to shut down federal programs.
According to data made public by the Office of Management and Budget, the funding—$6.75 million so far—came in two chunks:
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$750,000 on Jan. 27
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$6 million on Jan. 30
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A notable change in DOGE’s funding structure is that it now has its own Treasury account, independent of the Information Technology Oversight and Reform budget.
A White House official claimed this was just a continuation of funds previously allocated to the U.S. Digital Service. However, the lack of transparency around how DOGE is using the money has raised concerns.
Meanwhile, top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are working on legislation to block Musk’s access to federal data.
