Social media erupted after a massive announcement from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which revealed that a $380k a month contract was replaced with just a single part-time worker. In the department’s recent announcement, they revealed that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was paying over $4.5 million a year for website maintenance, which was replaced with 10 hours of work a week from a single engineer.
For context, President Trump established DOGE in one of his earliest executive orders and tasked it with implementing cost-cutting measures across the federal government. Acting on the president’s mandate, DOGE has focused explicitly on the VA, which has long been infamous for waste and corruption.
Such was shown when DOGE took to X on April 2, 2025, to reveal the graft. It said, “Good work by @DeptVetAffairs VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications. That contract has not been renewed and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week.”
In response to this groundbreaking revelation, conservative influencer Mario Newfal made his own post. He said, “DOGE SLASHES MASSIVE VA WEBSITE WASTE: $380K/MONTH TO JUST 10 HOURS/WEEK The VA was burning through $380,000 monthly for “minor website modifications” until DOGE investigators spotted the absurd contract.”
Building on that point, he explained how this move relates to Musk’s efficiency goal. He added, “Now one internal VA engineer handles the same work in just 10 hours per week, saving taxpayers millions annually with a single canceled contract. Another win for Elon’s efficiency team as they continue exposing outrageous government spending.”
Responding to DOGE’s post, conservatives chimed in to offer their support. One of the comments said, “Lmao… so previously we were paying $380K/month for 10 hours / week worth of work. Or $380K per 40 hours of work. Or $9,500 / hour.Which is a $19 MILLION / year salary pro-rated on a 40-hour week. For a single web designer.”
Other commentators asked for greater accountability. One of the replies read, “This requires prosecution. We can’t simply hold hearings and commence a prosecution on the largest instances of waste, fraud, and abuse. This was a large amount of money being knowingly stolen from taxpayers.”
Some users speculated that this waste may be part of a broader scheme. One of the responses read, “I can’t help but wonder if most of these contractors are in on some kind of money laundering scheme.
It’d be interesting to see what kind of relationship these people have with government employees…”
Other comments read, “Whomever approved that contract is hopefully no longer working at the VA.
The company that knew they were fleecing taxpayers should be ashamed of themselves.” Another reply read, “This is fantastic, although it exacerbates my contempt for the digesting waste and theft. May the good guys win. THANK YOU.”
Rounding out the comments, some posters drew attention to other cases of government overreach. One of the responses said, “I would like to know if the @FBI is still classifying US veterans into terror watchlists because of their training and experience in defending our great country. Seems this initiative was going on during the Biden Administration and its existence has been quietly swept under the rug. @FBIDirectorKash.”
Watch a DOGE staffer expose more fraud:
