While cutting for Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, Elon Musk said he could reduce 2 dollars of the federal budget. After Mr. Trump took office and placed Mr. Musk in charge of the so-called Department of Government efficiency, Mr. Musk lowered this projection by half, to 1 dollars in the next fiscal year.
During a meeting of the cabinet on Thursday, Mr. Musk seemed to put the goal of his group below.
“I am delighted to announce that we are planning to save in 26 from the reduction of waste and fraud of $ 150 billion,” Musk told Mr. Trump, referring to the fiscal year, which takes place from early October 2025 to the end of September 2026.
Mr. Musk’s group has reduced the budgets and licensed thousands of workers around Washington, but so far, the Doge website indicates that it remains far from reaching its objective of $ 1 Billion in savings next year. On Thursday, the site claimed $ 150 billion in savings, with a detailed list of some of the alleged cuts.
It was not clear if Mr. Musk meant that the $ 150 billion was simply what his team had found it so far – which means that 1 billion of dollars in savings was still possible – or if 150 billion dollars were all that was supposed to find.
An official of the White House said that $ 1 billion in savings remained “the objective”.
Unlike a previous meeting of the cabinet, during which Trump made Mr. Musk speak, Thursday’s meeting began with the president asking the defense secretary Pete Hegseth to speak. Mr. Musk spoke later and briefly.
In his remarks, Mr. Musk said that he had answered someone who had asked him how he found government fraud saying: “In fact, go to any direction – that’s how you find it.” He described it as an “environment rich in targets”.
But the website that Mr. Musk’s group used to boast his savings was plagued by errors, in particular triple counting of the same cancellations and claiming the credit for the reduction of programs that ended with President George W. Bush.
The criticisms of Mr. Musk outside the administration – notably Stephen K. Bannon, the far -right provocateur and the former senior Trump’s white house – said publicly that the cost reduction effort was properly correct, but that Mr. Musk is unlikely to reach 1 billion of dollars of cuts.
