Bessent Reveals 10% Of US Budget Lost To Fraud, Signaling Musk Has Unfinished DOGE Business

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s interview with journalist Christopher Rufo suggests that Elon Musk still has unfinished business at DOGE, as fraud, waste, and abuse from Somali networks in Minnesota, California Democrats, and other deep-blue states have dominated the news cycle for the last several weeks.

Bessent told Rufo that somewhere between 5% to 10% of the total federal budget is siphoned off by fraud and abuse each year, citing data from the Government Accountability Office.

“So it’s about 10% of the federal budget, 1 to 2% of GDP. And if we can narrow that number, President Trump asked for a $500 billion increase in the defense budget to fortify, you know, 10 to 20 years of neglect, and forever wars that we’ve been involved in that he’s determined not to get us into. We need to flex up our military budget, if we can get rid of this waste, fraud, and abuse, we can finance a safer, sounder US with with that with without taking on more debt. Sounds pretty good outcome to me,” Bessent said.

Rufo asked Bessent about DOGE. Bessent responded, “Uh, yeah, and Chris, to be clear, I was in 100% alignment with Elon on the waste, fraud, and abuse. It was just, you know, the Silicon Valley motto is move fast and break things. I said my personal motto and the Treasury motto is move deliberately and fix things. And that’s what you’re going to see in our investigations. You’re not going to see headlines tomorrow. You’re not going to see them next week, but in a month or quarter, once we get people in the bear trap, they’re not getting out because we will have conclusive evidence to present. And I think that they will have to, uh, make plea deals that they will be willing to negotiate to turn in higher-ups to help us map out how this happened. And again, we’re going to take this Minnesota map to the other 49 states.”

Bessent and Rufo also discussed ongoing investigations into dark-money-funded NGOs…

“And again, what we do is follow the money—just like we followed it with the mafia, just like we follow it. We’ll find out who’s done this. I announced today that we are going to put in effect a whistleblower program. And my sense is that the rats will turn on each other,” Bessent said.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury ⁦@SecScottBessent⁩ tells me that the Trump Administration will launch investigations into left-wing nonprofits that serve as a front for violent protests and criminal obstruction of ICE operations. It’s time to stop left-wing terrorism in America. pic.twitter.com/roorsk4XLA

— Christopher F. Rufo (@christopherrufo) January 9, 2026

Elon Musk played a major role in DOGE in early 2025 before stepping away in that spring, but the recent steady flow of fraud, waste, and abuse news suggests his work there is far from finished.

The question is whether Musk returns to DOGE. He did pour cold water on the idea during Katie Miller’s podcast, saying the chances of going back were zero. But with Americans outraged over Somali fraud, it is still possible Musk could feel compelled to finish the job he started.