Electrolyte gating with ionic liquids is a powerful tool for inducing conducting phases in correlated insulators. An archetypal correlated material is VO2 which is insulating only at temperatures below a characteristic phase transition temperature. We show that electrolyte gating of epitaxial thin films of VO2 suppresses the metal-to-insulator transition and stabilizes the metallic phase to temperatures below 5 K even after the ionic liquid is completely removed. We provide compelling evidence that, rather than electrostatically induced carriers, electrolyte gating of VO2 leads to the electric field induced creation of oxygen vacancies, and the consequent migration of oxygen from the oxide film into the ionic liquid.