- Elon Musk and the DOGE team are focused on reducing federal spending by 15%, targeting waste, fraud, and what they call government inefficiency. Their website claims DOGE has saved $130 billion.
- Musk defended DOGE’s approach in an exclusive Fox News interview, stating that mistakes are corrected quickly and that critics fail to address the specifics of the department’s cost-saving measures.
- The sit-down interview comes on the heels of a planned nationwide “Tesla Takedown” protest.
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Elon Musk and seven members of the DOGE team shared insights on the department’s cost-cutting initiatives during an exclusive interview on “Special Report” on Thursday, March 27. Musk highlighted the department’s goal of reducing government spending.
“We want to reduce spending by eliminating waste and fraud and reduce the spending by 15%, which seems really quite achievable,” Musk told “Special Report” host Bret Baier.
Musk expressed confidence in achieving the spending cuts without affecting critical services.
“The government is not efficient, and there’s a lot of waste and fraud. So we feel confident that a 15% reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services,” Musk said. “This is a revolution. And I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution. But at the end of the day, America’s going to be in much better shape. It’s going to be a fantastic future.”
Department’s progress and cost savings
As of March 28, DOGE reported on its website that it saved Americans $130 billion, or $807.45 per taxpayer. President Donald Trump assigned the department its primary mission: to optimize the federal government by streamlining operations and cutting spending. DOGE has been given 18 months to meet its objectives.
The department canceled numerous diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, federal consulting contracts, leases for underused federal buildings and duplicate agencies and programs.
Streamlining federal credit cards
Steve Davis, a member of the DOGE team, highlighted an example of the department’s work: federal credit cards.
“There are, in the federal government, around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees. This doesn’t make sense,” Davis said. “So one of the things all of the teams have worked on is we’ve worked for the agencies and said, ‘Do you need all of these credit cards? Are they being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?’”
Musk agreed, saying, “Clearly there should not be more credit cards than there are people.”
Criticism of DOGE and Musk answers to mistakes
Democrats have criticized Musk and DOGE’s approach and directives to slash government programs and workers. Critics argued the department has too much access to federal systems and should not be permitted to advise the cancellation of contracts or cuts to various agencies.
“They may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that,” Musk said.
He emphasized that the agency carefully approaches its cuts, noting that it “measures twice, if not thrice, and cuts once.”
Musk also defended DOGE’s actions.
“Which is not to say that we don’t make mistakes,” Musk said. “If we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all, that would be like saying someone in baseball has got to bat a thousand. That’s impossible. So when we do make mistakes, we correct them quickly and we move on.”
Musk argued that critics rarely engage with the specifics of the department’s cost-saving measures.
“When critics attack DOGE, they never attack any of the specifics,” Musk said. “They’ll say what we’re doing is somehow unconstitutional or illegal or whatever. We’re like, ‘Well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any.”
While many Republican lawmakers have supported DOGE, several Democrats remain skeptical and critical of the department and its leadership.
Amid tensions, ‘Tesla Takedown’ protest looms
The Fox News interview comes ahead of a planned nationwide protest on Saturday, March 29, called the “Tesla Takedown,” where Elon Musk and DOGE’s opponents plan to demonstrate outside Tesla showrooms.
Some attacks on Tesla have already crossed legal boundaries, with arrests made for explosives and vandalism at Tesla dealerships.