Elon Musk accuses the U.S. government of deleting a terabyte of data to hide crimes

X Chairman and CTO Elon Musk alleged that U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) employees deleted a terabyte of financial data to cover their crimes. The SpaceX boss said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was able to recover the deleted data as it had a better understanding of the technology.

Musk claimed that the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was able to recover the data deleted by United States Institute of Peace (USIP) employees to hide financial crimes. The billionaire investor said that the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was able to recover the deleted data as it understood the technology way better.

The Tesla CEO made this known in a post on his X handle on Tuesday, replying to a post claiming that the DOGE team fought for days to gain access to the United States Institute of Peace. The post also claimed that DOGE discovered massive fraud, waste, and abuse, including payments to the Taliban and Iraq.

Musk claims the U.S. government hid crimes by deleting financial data

HOLY SH*T!!! 🤯

ELON MUSK SAYS:

THE US GOVERNMENT "DELETED A TERABYTE OF FINANCIAL DATA TO COVER THEIR CRIMES."

"BUT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY, SO WE RECOVERED IT."

👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/OXM0i6eZbR

— Kyle Chassé / DD🐸 (@kyle_chasse) April 1, 2025

Musk accused employees at the US Institute of Peace of deleting a terabyte of financial data to their cover crimes. The statement came after Musk’s DOGE sent employees email notices of their mass firing, the latest step in the President Donald Trump administration’s government downsizing. The emails were sent to personal accounts as most staff members had lost access to the agency’s system on Friday.

The DOGE team fought for days to gain access to the United States Institute of Peace. Eventually, DOGE received help from the FBI and Metro Police and was able to access the agency and discovered massive fraud, waste and abuse-including payments to the Taliban and Iraq.

According to D.O.G.E., the United States Institute of Peace scandal exposed exactly why the No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act (H.R. 260) was critical. The Musk-led department also claimed that Biden-era bureaucrats funneled $1.3 million to the Al Tadhamun Iraqi League and $132k to a Taliban-linked official—proving systemic failure to track foreign aid. 

“They deleted a terabyte of financial data to cover their crimes, but they don’t understand technology, so we recovered it.”

–Elon Musk 

The Washington Post reported earlier that the U.S. administration had fired nearly the entirety of USIP’s headquarters staff. The institute’s employees told the newspaper that 200-300 people had been fired, while some were offered severance and one additional month of health insurance in exchange for their signatures to waive their rights to sue.

Musk discloses how much money is actually lost to fraud

Musk told Fox Business TV host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump economic adviser, that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated ‘half a trillion dollars’ was lost to federal government fraud in 2024. 

While referring to waste, Musk said most of the federal spending was ‘entitlements’ that needed to be ‘eliminated’ as it cost the country nearly $600 to $700 billion a year. However, using the word ‘eliminate’ in the same breath as ‘entitlements’ set off alarms among Trump’s and Musk’s Democratic critics.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Musk at a March 11th news briefing, saying that the billionaire was referring to cutting waste, fraud and abuse in those programmes, and Trump was going to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

GAO estimated there were $233 billion to $521 billion in fraudulent payments across the government per year. At the same time, the Office of Management and Budget found a lower figure of federal government fraud, ranging between $4.41 billion and $7.31 billion annually, based on amounts confirmed through judicial or adjudication processes. The estimated losses represented about 3% to 7% of average federal expenditure.

Musk said cutting fraud and waste would help his efforts to slash $1 trillion from the federal budget. He recently held a chainsaw as a symbol of cost-cutting on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on February 20th.

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