DOGE stimulus checks: What Trump is saying about putting money in your pockets

While many are scoffing at Elon Musk’s half-hearted — and mathematically unfounded — promise that Americans could receive a rebate for the federal government cost-cutting, President Donald Trump has decided it’s worth stringing people along and making them believe it could happen.

Pure math makes it unlikely that taxpayers will see any stimulus check, let alone an amount of consequence. Whatever Musk can cut via his DOGE buzzsaw, and that’s debatable, Republicans will want nearly all of that for planned tax cuts.

Nonetheless, Trump kept hope alive.

“There’s even under consideration a new concept, where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens, and 20% to paying down debt,” Trump said while speaking in Miami.

During his first term, Trump benefited from pandemic stimulus checks — passed by Democrats — when they were issued with his signature. Many Americans, unaware that Trump and Republicans actually opposed the checks, believed they came from Trump.

The controversial DOGE, run by Musk, claims to have saved the country some $55 billion in mass layoffs and other cuts to government, but specifics are lacking.

Between court challenges, confusion over some of the firings and internet sleuths challenging the amounts DOGE says it’s saved, the actual amount is not entirely concrete.

“Will check with the President,” Musk posted to X in response to the head of an investment firm pitching the idea of “a tax refund check to be sent after the expiration of DOGE in July 2026 funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE.”

If DOGE hits its $2 trillion in annual savings goal, which even Musk already walked back, it would result in about a $5,000 return per household; others have pegged the number as much as $8,000 — if the savings aren’t put toward tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

So, there’s no indication the payments will ever be made and people took to social media to criticize the plan.

“Explain to me again how issuing a ‘Doge dividend’ would do anything to reduce our deficit and national debt. It would literally achieve the opposite of what DOGE was meant to do,” wrote Brian Krassenstein on X. “How about instead, we tax corporations a bit more and use that revenue to issue a real dividend — one that actually benefits the middle class?”

DOGE has drawn widespread controversy and criticism as Musk and his team quickly worked to reduce costs by canceling grants and contracts and reducing the federal workforce. All the while, gaining access to sensitive data of U.S. citizens.

Thousands of federal government employees have been shown the door in the first month of President Donald Trump‘s administration.

It is affecting more than just the national capital region, home to about 20% of the 2.4 million members of the civilian federal workforce, which does not include military personnel and postal workers. More than 80% of that workforce lives outside the Washington area.

There is no official figure available of the total firings or layoffs. The Associated Press tallied how agencies are being affected based on AP reporting and statements from lawmakers and employee unions.

The White House offered a “deferred resignation” proposal in exchange for financial incentives, like months of paid leave, to almost all federal employees who opted to leave their jobs by Feb. 6.

Reporter Matt Arco contributed to this report.

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