Pentagon Killed $5.1 Billion IT Contracts With Accenture and Deloitte

The US’s protection secretary, Pete Hegseth, simply ordered the termination of IT and consulting contracts with corporations like Accenture and Deloitte, calling it “wasteful spending.”

In a Division of Protection memo, Hegseth stated he would lower a Protection Well being Company contract “for consulting providers from Accenture, Deloitte, Booz Allen, and different corporations that may be carried out by our civilian workforce.”

Additionally on the chopping block is the Air Power’s contract with Accenture to “re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Companies,” which Hegseth says the federal government can “already fulfill instantly with current procurement assets.”

Within the memo, Hegseth additionally stated he was terminating 11 different contracts for “consulting providers” that assist “non-essential” actions, like Range, Fairness and Inclusion (DEI), local weather issues, and the Pentagon’s COVID-19 response.

Hegseth stated the terminations “characterize $5.1 billion in wasteful spending” on the DOD and would lead to practically $4 billion in financial savings.

The financial savings could be reallocated, Hegseth stated, to serve “important priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Navy, and Reestablish Deterrence.”

He didn’t specify in his memo which Pentagon initiatives this cash would go to.

In response to a request for remark, the DOD directed Enterprise Insider to an X video of Hegseth speaking concerning the terminations.

“By the best way, we want this cash to spend on higher healthcare for our warfighters and their households, as a substitute of $500 an hour enterprise course of advisor. That is quite a lot of consulting,” Hegseth stated within the video.

Hegseth additionally expressed his gratitude to Elon Musk’s cost-cutting outfit, the Division of Authorities of Effectivity. DOGE has been slashing federal spending throughout numerous businesses, whether or not it’s by shedding 1000’s of federal staff or shuttering overseas support applications.

“So we need to thank our mates at DOGE. We need to thank all the parents right here which have helped us unpack this, reveal it, and we’re excited to make these cuts on behalf of you, the taxpayer and the warfighters on the Division,” Hegseth stated in his X video.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO referenced the Protection Division’s $841 billion funds in an op-ed he wrote with Vivek Ramaswamy for The Wall Avenue Journal in November. Ramaswamy, who was co-leader of DOGE on the time, left DOGE in January.

“The Pentagon just lately failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the company’s management has little thought how its annual funds of greater than $800 billion is spent,” the pair wrote.

Final month, Hegseth introduced that the Protection Division was terminating over $580 million in applications, contracts, and grants that DOGE had recognized as wasteful spending.

Representatives for Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from BI.