- Major consulting firm Deloitte has been hit hard by contract terminations carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to an analysis by Fortune, DOGE eliminated more than 120 contracts with the consultancy worth more than $1 billion. Economists warn the trend threatens future revenues of tech and consulting juggernauts.
As Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continues its mass elimination of government contracts, no consultancy has been harder hit than Deloitte.
DOGE has cut or modified at least 124 Deloitte contracts since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, Fortune found in an analysis of DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts.” The contracts were worth more than $1.16 billion, with Musk’s advisory group claiming to have saved taxpayers about $371.8 million from their terminations. The largest eliminated contract was worth more than $51 million for IT services for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Deloitte is one of at least 10 consulting firms with eliminated contracts. Comparatively, Booz Allen Hamilton had 61 contracts cut with an estimated $207.1 million “saved”; Accenture had 30 cut contracts worth $240.2 million in claimed savings; and IBM had 10 contracts worth $34.3 million in savings eliminated, Business Insider reported, meaning Deloitte had more than twice as many contract cuts as any other consultancy.
Though DOGE claims to have saved a total of $140 billion, not all of it is true savings, according to Bank of America. The advisory group has “overstated” its savings by failing to account for new contracts and inflating the value of other cancelled contracts, according to the bank. Other contracts listed on the DOGE Wall of Receipts were cancelled before Trump took office or ended naturally, The New York Times reported.
Still, DOGE’s cuts represent real losses for government contractors. Deloitte, one of the big four consulting companies along with PwC, EY, and KPMG, reported $67.2 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024, with about 10% of it coming from government contracts.
The mass contract cuts follow an order from the General Services Administration, which asked major consultancies to submit detailed plans identifying places to cut prices or eliminate contracts that aren’t “mission critical,” the Financial Times reported Monday, citing internal correspondence and an anonymous senior administrator. Some consultancies had a Monday deadline to submit a “scorecard” to the administration, which must reportedly include a dollar amount.
“This Administration is firmly of the view that America’s private industry is our backbone and competitive advantage, however, that’s not inconsistent with right-sizing spending, balancing the federal budget, and reducing our debt,” Josh Gruenbaum, GSA’s federal acquisition service commissioner, told Fortune in a statement.
He added that the administration would be open to seeking out new contracts with private industry partners “who also take the deficit as seriously.”
Deloitte did not respond to Fortune’s request for comments.
The private sector’s ‘wait-and-see’ approach
There have already been warning signs of the broader financial and economic impact of the widespread private sector contract terminations, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul government systems through mass funding cuts.
The government spent about $759 billion on contracts in fiscal 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office. Musk’s own companies have received at least $20 billion from the federal government.
“It’s a massive source of revenue for many different types of firms, not just government firms, but also private firms,” Abigail Blanco, an associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa, told Fortune. “So there are lots of entities, private entities, who rely on—in whole, or in part—various government contracts or government funding to fulfill their primary objectives.”
Business management consultancy Accenture reported last month that its Federal Services arm lost federal contracts as a result of DOGE’s cuts. Federal Services made up about 8% of Accenture’s global revenue last year, according to CEO Julie Spellman Sweet. According to the DOGE website, the advisory terminated at least 30 contracts worth about $240.2 million in claimed savings.
“As you know, the new administration has a clear goal to run the federal government more efficiently,” Sweet told investors in a recent earnings call. “During this process, many new procurement actions have slowed, which is negatively impacting our sales and revenue.”
Following the call, Accenture’s shares plunged more than 7%.
Workplace management software firm Oracle was another tech giant impacted by $580 million in cuts to the Department of Defense.
Analysts fear that continued substantial contract cuts could mean bad news for revenues, particularly for companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, which works closely with the Defense Department. The Pentagon is responsible for more than half of the value of all government contracts. Booz Allen Hamilton gets about 98% of its revenue from government contracts.
“The defense industry is heavily reliant on federal spending, and budget reductions could affect future sales” of the consultancy, Wells Fargo equity analyst Matthew Akers told investors in a note last month. “Government services contracts periodically come up for recompete, and any contract loss could materially affect results.”
Despite some cuts, the Defense Department has been largely unaffected by DOGE’s reviews, economics professor Blanco said, despite arguments that the department has contracts with inflated costs for products that underdeliver.
According to Blanco, the broader contract cuts will likely lead to downstream effects that are difficult to recognize now. Companies impacted by these cuts will likely have to reorganize their labor force, including laying off employees they may have hired for certain projects funded through government contracts, she said.
But more broadly, the breadth of terminated contracts creates a sense of uncertainty, Blanco argued. While markets try to understand the swath of recent economic changes—such as Trump’s aggressive tariff plan—companies will likely batten down the hatches to focus on finding alternative sources of funding. This “wait-and-see” approach can help firms stabilize themselves, but doesn’t fuel confidence necessary for innovation and expansion.
“The way that we get economic growth is when people are doing things, and they’re trying stuff, and they’re expanding their businesses,” Blanco said. “But adopting this wait-and-see kind of approach, it’s stagnant.”
