Elon Musk and his team of budget cutters have claimed credit for billions of dollars in canceled government contracts. But their initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, has so far barely touched the biggest sources of contract spending in the federal budget.

This narrow focus has meant DOGE’s impact on the federal budget has been narrow, too. In a New York Times analysis of public federal spending data, the total of the group’s claimed cuts represents a tiny slice of more than $750 billion in contracts across the government in 2024.

Those cuts fall disproportionately on smaller businesses owned by women and by people in minority groups. These smaller firms may lack the muscle to negotiate with the government or to compete for new work in the onerous federal contracting world.

By contrast, the 10 largest government contractors together collect more than a quarter of all federal contract spending, or over $200 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the Times analysis of nearly six million contracts.

The cuts DOGE has published include few contracts with these firms, and none at all with Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — four of the biggest defense contractors.

The group’s cuts have had big effects for small companies and nonprofits that work with the government.

“They have gone to really the equivalent of the mom-and-pop shops,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a group that investigates corruption and waste in government. “They are so on the margin of savings when it comes to the federal budget but have extraordinary impacts on the companies because they are small companies.”

These cuts, in turn, are also trickling down to the small businesses that subcontract with companies working with the government.

“I thought at first when things were happening that they would do something to protect small businesses,” said Anne Hayes, whose small business, Inclusive Development Partners, got about 90 percent of its income subcontracting on projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It never happened.”

Her company worked to ensure that U.S.A.I.D. educational programs in impoverished parts of the world were accessible to children with disabilities. Now she has not paid her staff of 22, many of whom have disabilities themselves, since Jan. 24.

“I’m grieving,” Ms. Hayes said. “I loved the business, I loved the people I worked with — it’s unfathomable that it’s disappearing.”

Share of spending among …

Mr. Musk’s team has undertaken other efforts to trim and transform federal spending, including by firing federal workers and canceling leases and grants. According to its own error–filled accounting, the group has claimed it has reduced government spending by $105 billion, a number that couldn’t be verified with the information DOGE has publicly posted. Of that sum, the website says that contract “savings” total only around $8 billion. But contracting is one of the few areas where the office has shown its work and where detailed analyses are possible.

The focus on smaller agencies largely reflects White House policy priorities, including a disdain for foreign aid, the Education Department and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. A recent executive order signed by President Trump suggests that far larger sources of spending are unlikely to face similar scrutiny, for now.

In the order, which promised “a transformation in federal spending,” the White House outlined steps for agencies to work with DOGE on future contract cancellations. Excluded from such cuts: all expenditures related to the military, immigration enforcement, law enforcement, public safety and the intelligence community.

The three cabinet-level agencies that primarily oversee those roles, the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, were responsible for two-thirds of all of the government’s contract spending in the 2024 fiscal year. U.S.A.I.D., by contrast, was responsible for 1 percent.

To assess DOGE’s choices, The Times compared all federal contract spending in the 2024 fiscal year with spending that year on contracts that the group lists as canceled on its website. Many contracts cited by the group actually ended long ago, were misidentified or claimed unrealistic savings. For that reason, we used the actual money spent in 2024 to estimate the effects of the group’s claimed cancellations.

Two-thirds of all the spending in 2024 on these contracts was for providing professional support services in some form. By contrast, the largest sources of spending for the full federal government include prescription drugs, government-funded health insurance, and military planes and ships.

Just 2 percent of the spending on contracts listed by DOGE went to businesses that produce goods, our analysis found. Across the government, that share was 28 percent.

The Defense Department, in particular, has a handful of extremely large contracts with companies that build the biggest and most complex equipment used in wars, like jets and aircraft carriers. The estimated cost of a single B-21 bomber, part of a contract with Northrop Grumman, is more than $500 million. The government has ordered around 100 of them.

Defense contractors may not be spared from the contract-cutting spree forever. The executive order discourages Mr. Musk’s operation from cutting their contracts immediately. But Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has asked the military branches to identify areas for spending cuts, part of a plan to reallocate resources to favored projects, such as border enforcement. (The White House did not respond to questions about how it intends to approach larger sources of federal contract spending in the future, or about the composition of cuts DOGE has pursued so far.)

“I don’t think the large defense contractors will be immune from cuts and contract terminations for long,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who noted that the sensitive nature of some defense contract details may require a different approach to cuts. “The defense industry is bracing for budget cuts.”

Large consulting firms are also preparing for scrutiny. The General Services Administration has asked the 10 largest such companies to come in to defend their contracts, as The Wall Street Journal first reported.

Those companies will be able to discuss and defend their spending before any cuts are made, a senior G.S.A. official confirmed. “We welcome them working with us to decrease our excessive government spending while continuing to provide the essential services the government needs,” Will Powell, the G.S.A.’s acting press secretary, said in a statement. No such opportunity was offered to smaller vendors.

In other ways, DOGE has pushed cuts that cause broad disruption with only small savings payoffs. The executive order last week also froze for 30 days credit cards used by federal offices to make “micro purchases” for things like lab supplies and plumbing services. Those expenditures average about $440 per transaction. About a third of this small-scale government spending goes to small businesses around the country — a local hardware store, or a self-employed landscaper.

Such targets, and the absence so far of bigger ones like defense contractors, add to the sense among critics that the group isn’t molding a leaner, more efficient government so much as it is pursuing ideological foes and social media ovation.

“Elon Musk has actually undermined the cause of deficit reduction by convincing people that simply cutting waste, fraud and abuse; D.E.I. contracts; foreign aid; and federal bureaucrats is all it takes to balance the budget,” said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute who has worked for two decades on efforts to rein in the federal budget. “This is making it even harder for those of us trying to convince the public that real sacrifice is necessary to fix the budget.”