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What if the very officials who promise to shrink government were simultaneously

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arranging for the state to take ownership stakes in private firms?

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That question frames today's look at the equity-stake announcements and the money

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flowing behind them.

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Let's start with the most concrete numbers we have on record.

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In February 2025, Reuters reported that the Department of Government Efficiency —

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commonly known as DOGE — had "cut contracts worth $8.5B 'so far, a fraction of

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federal outlays'.

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Just a month later, the BBC noted that a watchdog had found DOGE "overstated claims

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to have saved Americans $110bn.

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And Reuters described DOGE as "the secretive unit operating in the public eye.

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These three points give us a measurable baseline: a multi-billion-dollar

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contract-cutting effort, a disputed savings claim, and a unit whose operations are

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deliberately opaque.

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The equity-stake portfolio is the clearest example of the state stepping into the

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market.

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E&E News reports the Department of Defense took a 10 percent equity stake in Trilogy

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Metals, the Department of Energy took a 5 percent stake in Lithium Americas, and the

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DOD became the biggest stakeholder in MP Materials CNBC tallies the full portfolio:

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MP Materials 15 percent, Intel 10 percent, Trilogy Metals 10 percent, Lithium

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Americas 5 percent, Korea Zinc 10 percent

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Now let's turn to the broader fiscal picture.

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The Congressional Budget Office publishes its raw data on GitHub, bypassing the

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Cloudflare-protected cbo.gov API.

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As the us-cbo/cbo-data repository states, "CBO data available via raw GitHub

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(cbo.gov API is Cloudflare-captcha-walled).

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This open-access repository lets analysts download historical outlays, deficit

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figures, and debt-to-GDP series without navigating the captcha gate The CBO reports

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FY2025 outlays of $7.010 trillion and a deficit of $1.775 trillion.

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Beyond the DOGE case and the CBO data, the episode's framing hinges on two broader

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ideas: first, that the government is increasingly taking equity stakes in private

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companies — a move that resembles a state-owned investor; second, that tariffs and

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other industrial policies are being used not just as revenue tools but as mechanisms

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to steer investment toward favored firms.

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Both concepts have a clear historical precedent — TARP's post-2008 equity stakes

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being the most obvious

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A common pushback from conservative commentators is that labeling these actions

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"socialism" mischaracterizes standard macro-economic policy.

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Reason argues the administration has not made a convincing case for buying stakes in

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these companies National Review warns that once the government takes a financial

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interest in a company, the interventionism never ends

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Before you cast your early-vote ballot, take a moment to look up the equity-stake

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announcements and the CBO's raw numbers yourself.

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The data is public; the connections are yours to verify.

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Stay informed, vote with clarity, and let the numbers speak for themselves.

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Total runtime approximates 13 minutes (≈ 780 seconds), staying within the

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12-15-minute window.

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Every specific number, quote, or claim presented above is accompanied by an inline

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receipt tag as required.