Elon Musk joked in the Oval Office Tuesday about the scrutiny the Department of Government Efficiency is facing, likening it to a ‘daily proctology exam,’ while also promising to identify and eliminate the highest-paid D.C. bureaucrats.
Musk and his son X took over the Oval Tuesday afternoon to mark President Donald Trump signing a DOGE-centric executive order.
Although the specific details of the order were not immediately disclosed by the White House, its main aim is to significantly reduce the federal workforce by encouraging agencies to only hire one new employee for every four that leave, as reported by Semafor.
Interestingly, Trump opted not to sign the order in front of the press corps, giving Musk ample time to interact with his young child for over half an hour. During this time, the president engaged Musk in conversation, urging him to share some of the insights he had gathered.
‘We do find it sort of odd that, you know, there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,’ Musk said. ‘Which is what happened in USAID. We’re just curious as to where it came from.’
‘Maybe they’re very good at investing, in which case we should take their investment advice perhaps,’ Musk said.
Trump rubber-stamped what Musk was up to, telling reporters, ‘We don’t want an unsuccessful guy doing this.’
‘And I fully expect to be scrutinized and get a daily proctology exam, basically,’ Musk joked. ‘Might as well just camp out there.’
Musk scoffed when asked about his ‘detractors’ and said the American people voted for these cuts.
‘I have detractors? I don’t believe it,’ the South African-born billionaire replied.
‘Well, first of all, you couldn’t ask for a stronger mandate from the public,’ he continued. ‘The pubilc voted, a majority of the public voted for President Trump.’
‘We won the House, we won the Senate. The people voted for major government reform. There should be no doubt about it. That was on the campaign – the president spoke about that at every rally,’ he went on.
‘People are going to get what they voted for,’ Musk insisted. ‘And that’s what democracy is all about.’
DOGE’s decision to quickly hole out USAID – the United States Agency for International Development – prompted criticism and protests, with Democratic allies in Congress standing alongside federal workers.
There were also major concerns about Musk having access to the Department of Treasury’s payments system.
Musk conceded Tuesday that DOGE’s actions haven’t been perfect.
‘And we are moving fast, so we all make mistakes, but we’ll also fix the mistakes very quickly,’ the SpaceX, X and Tesla head said.
Overall he justified DOGE’s assault on USAID.
‘I think that there are some worth things but overall, if you say, what is the bang for the buck, I would say it’s not very good,’ Musk said.
Right out of the gate, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had claimed the DOGE unearthed $50 million being spent on condoms headed for Gaza.
Trump added to that by suggesting that Hamas fighters were using those condoms to create ‘bombs.’ In the past, Hamas had used condoms, balloons and other inflatables to set fires to Israeli farmland.
But on Tuesday, Musk conceded that the $50 million condoms to Gaza was an inaccurate figure.
‘First of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody’s going to bat a thousand,’ the billionaire said.
‘I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million in condoms anywhere, frankly, I’m not sure that’s something Americans would be really excited about,’ Musk said. ‘But you know, if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza I’m like that’s not as bad, but why are we doing that?’
