As billionaire Elon Musk seeks to reduce government expenditure via the Department of Government Efficiency, some social media users are asserting that taxpayers will soon see a refund.
A Facebook post from Feb. 23 claimed, “Well it’s official, (President Donald) Trump to sign order from Elon Musk, giving taxpayers who have filed their 2024 tax returns, a stimulus check for $5,000; not $1,200.”
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s initiative to fight against false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Learn more about our collaboration with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.)
An X user shared a similar claim stating, “It’s official! $5,000 DOGE Stimulus Checks confirmed by Trump!” This post included an edited image of a U.S. Treasury Department check worth $5,000 featuring photos of Trump and Musk with the caption, “DOGE checks approved.”
While the notion of distributing $5,000 checks to Americans from the savings generated by DOGE has circulated, and Trump has referenced it in speeches, he has not formally authorized this plan. PolitiFact found no announcements from the White House or news articles confirming Trump’s approval. We reached out to the White House but did not receive a reply before publication.
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Any proposal to issue stimulus checks to Americans would require congressional approval, similar to the process for the stimulus checks enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
James Fishback, the CEO and cofounder of investment firm Azoria Partners, which has hosted events at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, suggested this plan on Feb. 14 on X, tagging Musk.
“American taxpayers deserve a ‘DOGE Dividend’: 20% (of) the money that DOGE saves should be sent back to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check,” Fishback proposed. “At $2 trillion in DOGE savings and 78 million tax-paying households, this translates to a $5,000 refund per household, with the surplus allocated to pay down the national debt.”
However, it remains uncertain if DOGE will generate sufficient savings to make this plan viable.
DOGE’s website stated on Feb. 24 that its estimated savings amount to $55 billion, but this figure does not align with the details on the site’s “wall of receipts,” which allegedly tracks DOGE’s cuts. The identified savings from canceled government contracts and real estate amount to roughly $8.6 billion, leaving $46.4 billion unaccounted for.
The current savings fall significantly short of DOGE’s original goal of cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget, which was $6.8 trillion last fiscal year. Musk indicated in January that $2 trillion was a “best-case outcome,” asserting a “good shot” at achieving $1 trillion in savings.
Fishback elaborated on his DOGE dividend proposal in a longer X post on Feb. 18, suggesting that the tax refund checks could be issued after July 2026, when DOGE is projected to expire.
Musk responded to Fishback’s suggestion, stating he “will check with the president.”
On Feb. 19, Trump informed reporters at the Saudi Arabia-backed Future Investment Initiative Institute’s Priority Summit in Miami that he was contemplating “a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt.”
Later that same day, when questioned about the proposal on Air Force One, Trump remarked, “I love it. A 20% dividend for the money we’re saving by targeting waste, fraud, and abuse. I think it’s a fantastic idea.”
However, it remains “unofficial” that Trump has signed an order for Americans to receive $5,000 stimulus checks.
We assess this claim as False.
RELATED: DOGE announces billions in canceled government contracts. What are the origins of these figures?
