NEW YORK, April 16. /TASS/. The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), controlled by Elon Musk, blocked 470,000 credit cards issued to US government agencies after an audit.
"The program for auditing unused and unwanted credit cards was expanded to 30 government agencies. "After 7 weeks - about 470,000 cards were deactivated", the DOGE page on X states. At the time of the audit, about 4.6 million cards were active.
Elon Musk, commenting on the DOGE information, added that the number of credit cards issued to government agencies to cover employee expenses is "twice the total number of government employees". According to him, this ratio is "crazy".
At the end of February, it was reported that DOGE had set spending limits on government credit cards for a number of federal agencies, with plans to expand the restrictions to all federal agencies. The reason for this decision was suspicions that government bank cards were being used by employees in bad faith, including for fraud. Wired magazine sources in departments affected by the restrictions noted that they consider these suspicions unfounded, since all credit card spending is also subject to reporting and in many cases their use requires permission from superiors.
Wired also reported that the imposed restriction has already paralyzed some work processes in those federal agencies where the restrictions have already come into effect. According to them, officials at the US Department of Agriculture and the Federal Aviation Administration fear that a number of critical projects may be suspended due to the inability to quickly carry out operations on government contracts. Employees have already decided to bear some of the costs at their own expense to support important processes in the work of their institutions.