Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has continued to slash through federal agencies, firing workers and canceling contracts. But as it tallies its savings online, there are continuing indications that the group, which President Trump has referred to as Musk’s team of “super geniuses,” is overstating its achievements.
The latest sign of this is the DOGE claim in a recent post on X that it succeeded in selling off a historic Washington, D.C., property that has been boarded up for years.
The historic Webster School building was actually sold at auction in December for $4 million under the Biden administration. Records show that a company called Webster School LLC with members Katie Dang and Hung Tran were the purchasers. The sale appears to have been finalized on Feb. 5, 2025.
APK, via Wikimedia Commons
Long owned by the federal government, Webster has more recently stood as a visible reminder of the impact of vacant or underutilized federal buildings in the District, a problem that local leaders and congressional lawmakers have scrutinized with escalating intensity after the pandemic upended in-person office work.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the District in Congress, made the sale of the property a priority for years.
“The Webster School has been vacant since the 1980s and fallen into disrepair,” Holmes Norton said when announcing a renewed push to sell the building in the summer of 2023. “During my service in Congress, I have worked to transfer unused or underused federal land in D.C. to D.C. or the private sector to redevelop neighborhoods and to generate tax revenue for D.C.”
The property in downtown Washington was originally built in 1882 and has served over the years as a school — for White children during segregation, for assimilating immigrants after World War I, and for pregnant teens, according to the Washington Post. But it has stood vacant for decades.
The federal government’s General Services Administration, or GSA, initiated the auction in September 2024, with bidding commencing in November. The process concluded on Dec. 16, 2024, when an undisclosed bidder secured the property for approximately $4.138 million.
The DOGE attempt to take credit for the sale — and add the savings to its tally of success — is part of an emerging pattern. As CBS News previously reported, DOGE has erroneously claimed credit for savings including an $8 billion contract that was actually worth $8 million, and $3.8 million of the contract had already been expended.
The old Webster School building is situated close to the U.S. Secret Service headquarters and faced strict security restrictions that complicated efforts to sell or repurpose it.
Recognizing the need to address these challenges, Congress passed a bill in 2024 aimed at easing restrictions on the sale of the property. This paved the way for the GSA to put the Webster School up for auction in late 2024, ultimately leading to its sale in December.
This was part of a larger effort by the GSA to dispose of underutilized properties.
