Topline
Elon Musk said in an interview on Tuesday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the Trump administration initiative to slash the federal government’s spending, which he first proposed and later helped lead—was only “somewhat successful” and a project he wouldn’t take up again.
Elon Musk attends the Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center.
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Key Facts
Musk reiterated the project was “somewhat successful” and claimed he “stopped a lot of funding…that really just made no sense.”
The billionaire claimed, without offering specifics, that 2-3% of government payments that go out “really should not be going out” and said “it’s actually quite hard to stop.”
The interviewer, Katie Miller—wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—asked Musk if he would do DOGE again if he could go back and start from scratch, and the Tesla CEO said: “No, I don’t think so.”
“Instead of doing DOGE, I would have…worked at my companies…and they wouldn’t have been burning the cars,” referring to the vandalism of Tesla cars earlier this year as he started working with the Trump administration.
Musk also pointed out that DOGE was a “made-up name…based on internet suggestions,” and he initially wanted to call the agency the Government Efficiency Commission.
What Else Did Musk Discuss On Katie Miller’s Podcast?
Musk was asked if his time in Washington, D.C. had left him disillusioned, to which he said: “I wouldn’t say I was super illusioned to begin with, I mean, I guess it’s just like you really want the least amount done by government possible.” The billionaire then pushed unsubstantiated claims about immigrants being paid to enter the U.S. in “vast numbers” and being “fast-tracked to citizenship.” Musk then claimed without any evidence that these immigrants were “beholden to government payments and voting hard left.” Musk then claimed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., were voted into their positions by “a majority of people” who were not born in America. “We just don’t want to turn into a…communist hell hole basically,” he added.