Yeah, no. Companies that care about costs absolutely track what they’re spending and where. I’ve seen plenty of merely questionable expenses a fraction of this caught and called out at very large companies.
Indeed, but that's also true for any large organization, whatever their status: public, private, nonprofit.
I witnessed large sums being spent for very dubious reasons in private firms, mainly in order to meet ridiculous demands by executives. Show-off features despite no interest from customers, "visionary product" e.g. implementing a blockchain or "artificial intelligence" that classic algorithms could do as well for much cheaper.
The idea that private entities pay more attention to money than public entities is a prejudice. At least in modern developed democracies.
Financial scandals in private firms tend to be muted in order to preserve the external reputation: hence the impression that public entities are less careful.
It's all the same everywhere, no general rule in that matter.
Both can be true. Companies will question every little nickel and dime certain employees spend and then have big stupid horrible blind spots in other places. Happens all the time. I was a PhD student at Yale and they were extremely touchy about certain kinds of spending, and then would also do stupid stuff like this.
