Florida is sending $878 million back to the federal government, Gov. Ron DeSantis revealed Friday after a meeting with tech guru Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team.
DeSantis said the Sunshine State had been trying to send $878,112,000 back to the feds for years, but faced roadblocks from the Biden administration. After his meeting with DOGE, he was able to finalize plans to wire that money back to the US Treasury.
“For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn’t even figure out how to accept it,” DeSantis explained on X Friday.
“Other states should follow Florida in supporting DOGE’s efforts!”
The Florida governor pledged to continue looking for surplus funds from federal grants that it could give back to Uncle Sam. DeSantis did not publicly divulge the specific details about which federal grants had been returned.
“Almost a billion dollars of your taxpayer money saved,” Musk said on X, hailing DeSantis’ move.
Last month, DeSantis announced he was taking a page from Musk’s playbook and creating a Florida DOGE task force to “further eliminate waste within state government.” Other GOP governors in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere have taken similar steps as well.
Musk praised DeSantis during the 2024 campaign cycle but was careful about outright endorsing him.
DeSantis’ primary campaign irked President Trump, who wanted him to sit it out. Relations between the two Republicans had been frosty in the months that followed Trump’s resounding 2024 primary win.
Last month, Trump pre-emptively endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) to serve as Florida governor. Donalds later entered the race and quickly surged in most of the subsequent polling of the 2026 race.
“My view is, is Donald Trump just got into office. I want these congressmen focused on enacting his agenda. They haven’t done very much yet,” DeSantis later said of Donalds.
Trump’s endorsement of Donalds came while DeSantis, who is term-limited, was still trying to test the waters for his wife Casey to run.
The first lady of Florida has kept the door open to running nonetheless, telling a conservative audience last week “we’ll see” about a possible campaign to succeed her husband.
Earlier this month Ron and Casey DeSantis teed up with the president at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
