Sitting at the head of a large conference table inside the Roosevelt room of West Wing on Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk, dressed in his t-shirt and his signing blazer, lowered the question of whether his ministry of government efficiency would answer his commitment to reduce $ 1 billion in the federal budget.
“I think it’s possible to do it, but it’s a long way to go, and you know, it’s really difficult,” he said about the objective of billions of dollars. “It is in a way, how much pain is, you know, is the cabinet and the congress ready to take? Because it can be done, but it requires facing many complaints.”
His appearance contrasts with his confidence of the chest just a few months ago what he would accomplish in government. Standing on stage during a Trump rally at the Madison Square Garden in October, Musk told a roaring crowd that he could cut “at least two Billions” in federal spending. He then half reduced this figure.
Now, Mr. Musk, who has never served the government before, has been forced to revise his expectations even more, although he always insists that his objectives remain technically possible. His 101 days of government were stormy, and his series of interviews this week – including Wednesday’s session with journalists from the main newspapers and television networks – seemed to be an effort to regain control of the messaging.
He clashed with secretaries of the cabinet and brought complaints of legislators whose voters’ services and jobs were threatened by cuts from his Ministry of Government Effectiveness. He argued with the president on prices and faced demonstrations by federal employees, in particular his decision to dismantle entire agencies, including the American agency for international development and the financial protection office of consumers.
He also encountered a mathematical problem of which the budgetary experts of the two parties warned: there is no way to reduce a Billion of Dollars without tackling the most politically sensitive parties of the budget, social security net programs and military expenditure.
The billionaire says he is proud of the cuts that Doge made. He says he plans to return to spending most of his time working on his businesses, notably Tesla, X and SpaceX, but plans to devote about two days a week to the government’s work, visiting Washington every two weeks.
DOGE was originally intended to operate only until July 4, 2026, but Mr. Musk said that he could imagine the effort crossing the four whole years of the Trump administration. He said it would be the President Trump to decide how long he wanted him to continue to work on the initiative. Mr. Musk is authorized to serve only 130 days as “employee of the special government”, but if he reduces his part -time hours, he could extend his time to work for the Trump administration in months.
Mr. Musk insisted that Doge would do well in his absence. But he was elusive, using jokes, when asked who would fill his place.
“Doge is a way of life. Like Buddhism,” said Musk.
In a hurry, he said, “Is Buddha necessary for Buddhism?”
In Mr. Musk’s story, he gave Doge, that he compared to a “start-up”, the intensive burst of his attention that had to be taken off. Mr. Musk claims to have saved taxpayers for 160 billion dollars.
But the “receipt wall” in Doge does not represent 64% of this total. The group has detailed only $ 58 billion from its savings by linking them to specific contracts, subsidies and leases. The $ 102 billion other are not explained. And even the $ 58 billion in savings that DOGE has detailed is considerably inflated, including errors and simple and simple assumptions about the future.
Mr. Musk said that it was always “absolutely” possible to find 1 billion of savings to face the problem of national debt in balloon, but that it remained to be seen if there was “a sufficient political will in the congress and elsewhere to do it”.
“And we might not succeed,” he said.
Trump clearly told Mr. Musk that some of the most considerable parties in the federal government are prohibited for serious reform. The president has excluded changes to social security and health insurance, which represent more than a third of federal expenses. And the defense secretary Pete Hegseth said he wanted the pentagon budget to be increased to 1 dollars.
On Wednesday, at the White House, Mr. Musk reiterated that there were billions of others to save from waste reduction and that his team had found clear evidence of fraud.
By thinking about his stay in Washington, Mr. Musk shared an unusual amount of details on his life with Mr. Trump.
“I guess we are good friends, and we will be on Air Force One or Marine, and he says:” Hey, do you want to stay? ” And I say to myself “of course,” said Musk.
Mr. Musk ended up spending the night in Lincoln’s room several times.
During one of these pajamas, said Musk, Trump called him late at night to tell him to make sure to get cooking ice cream. The billionaire said he had helped a whole container of Häagen-Dazs caramel.
“I was like, this thing is incredible,” he said.
David A. Fahrenthold Contributed reports.
May 1, 2025
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An earlier version of this article disturbed, in a case, the savings that DOGE detailed. It’s $ 58 billion, not $ 58 million.
