Elon Musk, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump and special government employee (SGE), revealed on Tuesday that he plans to speak with Trump about sending rebate checks to U.S. taxpayers using funds recovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk is not receiving a salary for his role, according to White House filings. During the Biden administration, his senior advisor and SGE was Anita Dunn.
“We need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt. That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it. Too bad. Deal with it,” Musk previously posted on X.
Musk’s announcement followed a proposal by James Fishback, CEO of Azoria investment firm, for a “DOGE Dividend,” described as a “tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE.”
Musk responded to the proposal in an X post, stating, “Will check with the President.”
“With DOGE reportedly achieving $1 billion in savings per day, President Trump has an opportunity to work with Congress to take DOGE one step further and deliver what we at Azoria call the ‘DOGE Dividend,’ 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,” Fishback wrote in the proposal.
Fishback proposed that DOGE allocate 20% of the $2 trillion in theoretical total savings the organization is targeting and return it to approximately 79 million U.S. households that will be net payers of federal income tax in CY 2025 as a tax-refund check, called the ‘DOGE Dividend’ check per tax-paying household.
Addressing concerns that the rebate would be “inflationary,” Fishback explained that it wouldn’t be, as the “DOGE Dividend checks are exclusively funded with DOGE-driven savings, unlike COVID stimulus checks which were deficit-financed.” He added that “DOGE Dividend checks are sent only to tax-paying householders, who have demonstrated a propensity to save (not spend) the incremental dollar received.”
“The DOGE Dividend is different from past stimulus checks (e.g., 2021 American Rescue Plan) because only tax-paying households receive it. Tax-paying households are more likely to save (not spend) a transfer payment like the DOGE Dividend, as consumption is a lower share of their income,” Fishback noted.
The proposal would require congressional approval before any rebate checks are issued, as lawmakers evaluate the most effective ways to utilize the savings generated by DOGE.
According to a live savings tracker, DOGE has purportedly saved $55 billion for the federal government, and the organization is currently investigating the Pentagon and the IRS.
