Elon Musk Might Send DOGE Dividend Checks to Taxpayers — We're Not Holding Our Breath

There is a Reddit thread devoted to the empty promises made by Elon Musk. It exists in the r/skeptic subreddit and begins with, "For future reference, here is an exhaustive list of all the things Mr. Elon Musk has promised, but failed to deliver on." This was started in July 2023 and links to a website that also tracks what Elon has claimed would come to pass.

Each pledge or idea is followed by a number, which counts the number of days since the SpaceX founder tossed out an idea that never happened. For example, it's been over a thousand days since he promised to "take carbon out of the air and use it for rocket fuel." Perhaps the DOGE dividend will be added to this list. What is that? Here's what we know.

The idea for the DOGE dividend was dreamt up by Azoria investment firm CEO James Fishback, who posted his proposal X. In it, James claims that DOGE is reporting a daily savings of $1 billion per day which gives President Donald Trump the "opportunity to work with Congress to take DOGE one step further" by sending a tax refund check after DOGE expires in July 2026. It will be funded exclusively by the aforementioned savings.

According to James, DOGE is on track to save $2 trillion, 20 percent of which will be divided between the 79 million U.S. households that pay federal income tax. By his calculations, DOGE would then send a tax refund check of $5,000 to each household. What are the benefits? James said this would make up for the "egregious misuse and abuse" of the hard-earned tax dollars of American citizens.

James apparently believes this will incentivize citizens to report "instances of waste, fraud, and abuse to DOGE," which in turn will increase their savings and result in a bigger DOGE dividend check. In other words, snitches get checks. In a scenario like that, one really runs the risk of filing false reports in order to get paid. By the way, since only those who pay federal taxes can receive DOGE dividends, more people will undoubtedly find jobs in order to get the check.

Because we're now doing business, we mean politics, on social media, Elon replied to James's post saying he would talk to the president about it. The reactions under the original post were mixed. One person said they were fine with the DOGE dividend as long as it's tax-free. Thankfully, James was able to assure this person that it would be.

When asked if this would be inflationary, James said no. The DOGE dividend checks are "exclusively funded with DOGE-driven savings, unlike COVID stimulus checks which were deficit-financed." James also said that because the DOGE dividend check would go to tax-paying households only, those people were more likely to save versus spend the "incremental dollar received." We're not sure how he reached that conclusion.