Available data so far do not confirm Chamath’s scenario, but the specific post‑tightening period he referenced is only just beginning and is not yet fully measured.

1. Federal spending and “budget tightening”
   DOGE was created in January 2025 to cut federal spending, but its claimed savings have been heavily disputed; independent analyses and congressional investigations suggest many cuts were either overstated or offset by other costs.(en.wikipedia.org) At the aggregate level, FY 2025 federal outlays increased about 4% to a record $7.01 trillion, with the deficit edging down only slightly (from $1.817T to $1.775T), largely due to higher tariff revenues and very deep but narrow cuts to education, rather than broad fiscal tightening.(reuters.com) That is not the large, across‑the‑board spending clamp‑down (removing 1–1.5 percentage points of GDP) implied in the prediction.

2. What official GDP data show so far
   The BEA’s 2025 Q2 release (which also revised Q1) shows real GDP fell at a -0.6% annualized rate in Q1 2025 but then rose +3.8% in Q2.(bea.gov) That rules out a technical recession in the usual “two consecutive negative quarters” sense for the first half of 2025. Analysts and BEA commentary attribute the Q1 drop primarily to a tariff‑driven surge in imports and weaker consumer spending, not to the belated recognition of prior “wasteful” government spending.(reuters.com) Crucially, the BEA’s preferred proxy for underlying private demand—real final sales to private domestic purchasers—grew 1.9% in Q1 and 2.9% in Q2, indicating the private economy excluding government and trade has not been in recession.(bea.gov) No official data series or revision has identified the 1.0–1.5 percentage point “government waste” component of GDP that Chamath forecast.

3. No official recession call yet
   The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, which provides the standard retrospective judgment on U.S. recessions, has not declared any new recession after the April 2020 trough; its published chronology still lists that as the most recent turning point.(nber.org) So there is currently no official recognition of a 2025 recession, let alone one explicitly described as existing “independent of the tariffs” or driven by removal of government‑spending distortions.

4. Timing and missing later‑quarter data
   Major Trump‑era budget bills (such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Rescissions Act) were only signed in July 2025, so any post‑tightening effects would mainly show up starting in Q3 2025 and beyond.(en.wikipedia.org) However, because of the October–November 2025 government shutdown, the BEA canceled the advance and second estimates of Q3 GDP and has not yet released revised dates.(reuters.com) That means we literally do not yet have official GDP data for the first full quarter after the main budget tightening package took effect, let alone for the “few quarters” Chamath referenced.

Taken together: (a) current data contradict the idea that stripping out government spending reveals an already‑existing private‑sector recession in early 2025, and (b) the key period after mid‑2025 budget tightening is only beginning and partly unmeasured. Because the horizon of the prediction has not fully elapsed and essential later‑quarter figures are missing, it is too early to say definitively whether his forecast will prove right or wrong. Hence the status is best classified as inconclusive at this time.