Elon Musk said that the Department of Government Efficiency is aggressively cutting the federal bureaucracy because that is what President Trump has encouraged him to do.
Musk, during President Trump’s first Cabinet meeting of his second term, told reporters “The President’s [the] Commander in chief. I do what the President asks.”
That came right after he said President Trump encouraged him last week, both on the phone and in a Truth Social post, to be “more aggressive” when it comes to cutting government agencies.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss has been criticized by some, including Democratic politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who called Musk “not smart” — for his push to cut the bureaucracy. Musk, via DOGE, the new department he is spearheading for President Trump, has been cutting government spending from agencies like USAID and the Department of Education.
Musk, during an interview with Sean Hannity last week on Fox News, said he is aiming to cut at least $1 trillion from annual government spending; last year, the federal government spent $6.75 trillion.
Last weekend, Musk sent an email to federal employees asking them to outline 5 things they accomplished the week prior. Musk, on Wednesday, said that email was not meant to be “capricious or unfair,” but simply act as a way to check and see which government employees were active.
“Are these people real? Are they alive? And can they write an email, which I think is a reasonable expectation the American public would have … of someone in the public sector,” Musk said.
He added that “we wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well.”
President Trump jumped in right after that, saying he was not happy with the one million federal employees who did not respond to Musk’s email.
“I’d like to add that those million people that haven’t responded [to] Elon, they are on the bubble. You know, I wouldn’t say that were thrilled about it, they haven’t responded now, maybe they don’t exist. Maybe we’re paying people that don’t exist,” the president said.
President Trump added that the federal government is “bloated” and “sloppy” and in need of being trimmed. He also said that his goal to cut government spending will not include touching Medicare and Medicaid.
