DOGE says government paying for 11,020 Adobe Acrobat licenses with zero users, plus more ‘idle’ accounts

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has been squandering money on thousands of unused software licenses, an audit found, according to DOGE.

For example, there were “11,020 Acrobat licenses with zero users,” DOGE noted in the post on X.

The list also included other examples.

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White House Senior Advisor to the President and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk departs the U.S. Capitol Building on March 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

DOGE’s “initial findings on paid software licenses” also included, “35,855 ServiceNow licenses on three products; only using 84,” “1,776 Cognos licenses; only using 325,” “800 WestLaw Classic licenses; only using 216” and “10,000 Java licenses; only using 400.”

“All are being fixed,” the tweet concluded.

Fox News Digital reached out to HUD and the White House on Friday, but did not receive comments by the time of publication.

“There are vast numbers of unused software licenses in every part of the government. Your tax dollars are being wasted,” Elon Musk wrote when commenting on the DOGE post.

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DOGE has previously made similar announcements regarding the General Services Administration, Department of Labor, Small Business Administration, and Social Security Administration.

“Agencies often have more software licenses than employees, and the licenses are often idle (i.e. paid for, but not installed on any computer),” the DOGE X account noted in a tweet. 

“For example, at GSA, with 13,000 employees, there are,” the post listed, “37,000 WinZip licenses,” “19,000 training software subscriptions (and multiple parallel training software platforms),” “7,500 project management software seats for a division with 5,500 employees,” “3 different ticketing systems running in parallel.” 

The tweet concluded by noting, “Fixes are actively in work.”

The DOGE GSA X account swiftly replied, indicating that cuts were on the way: 

“Not for long…” a tweet read, with a scissor emoji added in an apparent signal that cuts were coming. “We will report back with progress shortly!”

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GSA Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator Stephen Ehikian replied, “Hope we didn’t make you wait too long…  within 3 hours of @DOGE post, @USGSA is taking immediate action to reduce $5.5M of IT spend & working to identify additional reductions across all categories—ensuring strong stewardship of your tax dollars.”

Several days later another DOGE post reported that GSA had made significant progress.

“Since this post, @USGSA took immediate action to reduce IT spend by deleting 114,163 unused software licenses & 15 underutilized / redundant software products — for a total annual savings of $9.6M,” DOGE noted.

A GSA spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital, “In support of the administration’s priorities, efficiency and good stewardship, GSA is currently undertaking a review of its contracts and resources, including IT resources, to ensure our staff can perform their mission in support of American taxpayers. GSA has taken immediate action to fully implement all current executive orders and is committed to taking swift action to implement any new executive orders.”