Elon Musk Reveals Federal Government Spent Nearly $1 Billion on National Park Survey
Elon Musk revealed during a Fox News interview on Thursday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered nearly $1 billion in federal spending on a survey asking Americans if they liked national parks.
Musk, speaking with Fox News’ Bret Baier, discussed DOGE’s efforts to identify and eliminate government waste to save taxpayer dollars. When asked about the most “astonishing” discovery so far, Musk pointed to rampant waste and fraud in government spending.
“The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government,” Musk answered. “It is astonishing. It’s mind-blowing. We routinely encounter waste of a billion dollars or more, casually.”
“For example, like the simple survey that was literally [a] 10 questions survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey, [which] would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that,” Musk explained.
Baier, seemingly astonished, asked, “For just a survey?”
“A billion dollars for a simple online survey — ‘Do you like the National Park?,’ and then there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey,” Musk said. “So the survey would just go into nothing. It was insane.”
Musk’s claim sparked mockery online, with many citing it as another example of government inefficiency. Utah Senator Mike Lee reacted on X, writing, “It’s long been understood that Americans like National Parks—quite unlike how they feel about most of the federal government. And yet the federal government spent $1 million asking people if they do. Really stupid.”
Musk and DOGE have continued their efforts to reduce government waste. Baier noted that Musk and his team have 130 days as “special government employees” and asked if they would accomplish their goal within that time frame.
“I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk said. “We are cutting the waste and fraud in real-time. So every day like that passes, our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week. So far we are succeeding.”
