Elon Musk's aggressive efforts to improve efficiency failed to prevent the U.S. federal government from increasing its spending to a record $603 billion last month, compared with just $296 billion in taxes, according to new data from the U.S. Treasury, highlighting the Trump administration's difficulties in slashing the size of government. This resulted in a budget deficit of $307 billion for the month, meaning that the US government collected less than the deficit in all taxes in February. In other words, the US spent more than twice as much as it collected in February. This also means that the deficit in February this year is close to an all-time high, with only the post-epidemic shock of 2021 being bigger than this, and pushes the cumulative total deficit in 2025 to $1.147 trillion, accounting for 38% of total US spending in fiscal 2025.