Elon Musk tells Republican legislators that he is not responsible for federal dismissals

Washington (AP) – It is not his fault.

Billionaire Elon Musk told Republican legislators that he should not blame for the Leaves of thousands of federal workersincluding veteransas pushes to reduce the government. Instead, he said in Private conferences this week that these decisions are left to the various federal agencies.

The message of one of President Donald Trump’s most influential advisers came when Republicans publicly support Musk’s work Government Department of Effectiveness – Who claims to unearth Waste, fraud and abuse – but raise private issues as the staff cut Ripple through communities across the country.

“Elon does not shoot people,” said representative Richard Hudson, RN.C., after a meeting with a pizza with Musk in the basement of the Capitol.

“He has no hiring and dismissal authority,” added Hudson, who heads the campaign arm of the House Republicans. “The president allowed him to go and discover this information, that’s all.”

It is a remarkable change in the accent of the technological entrepreneur brandishing the chainsaw whose vast power made him an admired, venerated and deeply feared figure in the second Trump administration.

The republican president weighed Thursday after a meeting of the cabinet, saying that he had asked the secretaries of the department to work with DOGE but to be very precise “on the workers who will remain or would go-by using a” scalpel “, he said in an article on social networks” rather than “ax”.

“I don’t want to see a big cup where many good people are cut,” said Trump later to journalists in the oval office.

Trump suggested that chiefs of cabinet and agency would take the lead, but Musk could push stronger the whole line.

“If they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will cut. »»

He had declared in the previous post that the managers of musks and the cabinet would meet every two weeks to advance their cost reduction goals

The comments come in the midst of legal disputes on Musk’s attempts to centralize the management of the government’s workforce and to circumvent the traditional role of the congress to appropriate federal dollars.

For example, the White House staff management office led federal agencies To dismiss probation employeeswhich lacks complete protection of the public service. The approach of burned land has led to deep cuts that have sometimes been reversed, as when workers in nuclear weapons were Brought back to work.

A federal judge from San Francisco expressed his concerns The layoffs have violated the lawThis led the administration officials to emphasize the fact that they were individual agencies – no musk or the staff management office – calling for gunshots.

Representative Carlos Gimenez, R -Fla., Told that Musk told legislators that “some of the people who were probation, he did not draw them, they were in fact supposed to dismiss by agencies – and they spoiled.”

Did Musk said “they spoiled?”

“Well, if they were actually, you know, critical people, and the agency made the dismissal, so yes, they spoiled,” said Gimenez. “But not him.”

Musk and his team were buried in agencies, access sensitive data and clicking career managers with their requests. Senior officials, including the social security administration, suddenly removed from his functions After refusing to comply with the Musk team. Tens of thousands of workers have accepted a resignation offer Others face potential layoffs.

“We are making good progress,” Musk said on Wednesday evening as he rushed into the corridors of the Capitol.

The richest person in the world, Musk is known as a motivated and demanding framework that is ready to take daring risks, often with great awards. Its companies include Rocket Spacex, the Tesla electric vehicle manufacturer and the world’s social media platform, known worldwide.

But his perch in Doge is the first public foray by Musk in the grain of governing. The speed and scale of the cuts, which are disputed in dozens of judicial cases, present the businessman to the concept of political return.

When the subject of federal workers dismissed appeared during a lunch in the Senate, the diverted blame of Musk.

“I would say that there was an argument that it does not come from Doge, it comes in fact from individual agencies,” said Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky.

Another republican, the Andy Barr representative of Kentucky, said that Musk was going so far as not to emphasize that not only Doge had not recommended the mass dismissal of probationary employees, but that he thought that certain federal agencies were either incompetent or sabiting of the effort. Musk told them that he wanted more precise endings of those who did not play.

“The point it argued is that Doge had not made any recommendations for the general cuts of all probation employees in each agency,” said Barr.

“But the agencies have implemented it badly by incompetence or in a handful of cases of real malicious efforts to sabotage and create a problem of public relations for Doge.”

In fact, dozens of dismissed workers are recalled at work in federal agencies. This week, by the way 180 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers They had been told that they could come back, in an email that said: “Read this email immediately.”

Musk was invited to Capitol Hill this week by Trump Allies and party leaders to provide more information to the legislators faced with questions about the Doge Cups. Many Republicans are underway hammered at town halls At home, so much so that the president of the Mike Johnson room, R-La., Encouraged them to meet voters in other places.

Musk gave his mobile phone number to the senators – but not the members of the room – and his team sets up a dedicated telephone line that legislators can call if they have other questions, complaints or suggestions concerning his work, as well as jobs and agencies that should be spared.

Democrats and their allies in external defense groups highlighted the way the cuts harm Americans.

Thursday 141 Democrats of the Chamber led by the representative of Virginia, Gerald Connolly, the best democrat of the surveillance and reform committee of the government of the Chamber, urged the OPM to reintegrate all the probationary employees who were illegally dismissed.

“We write strong opposition to the expansion of the Trump administration’s efforts to purge non-partisan officials of the federal workforce, in particular recent illegal mass licensees of employees in probation status,” the legislators wrote in a letter to the acting director of the office, Charles Ezell.

“The dismissal without discrimination of thousands of these employees threatens the future of non-partisan federal workforce and the ability of our government to provide vital services to the American people.”

The Democratic Democrat of the Hakeem Jeffries of New York said that if the White House wanted to abolish an entire agency like the Ministry of Education, “bring the bill to the Congress. We welcome this fight.

Jeffries added: “We will stand on the side of the American people, and (the Republicans) will continue) to stand on the side of Elon Musk.”

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The writers of the associated press Kevin Freking and Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.