- President Donald Trump and Elon Musk host a press conference about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
- Musk identified millions of dollars in wasted funds in several departments.
- His son, X, perches on his shoulders, seemingly unfazed by the Oval Office's cameras.
President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk held a joint press conference in the Oval Office Tuesday, talking about progress over budget cuts.
Trump outlined his intentions to weed out government “corruption” before swiftly pivoting to let the press ask Musk questions.
“The bureaucracy ... has, in a lot of ways, currently more power than any elected representative. This is not what the people want,” Musk told White House correspondents before speaking about items on DOGE’s to-do list.
Musk wants to reform the Treasury Department
Wearing a black MAGA hat, with his son perched on his shoulders, Musk walked through a laundry list of the Department of the Treasury’s faults and outlined DOGE’s solutions.
Specifically, Musk mentioned:
- The Treasury Department’s failure to immediately stop funding groups on do-not-pay lists.
- The department’s failure to stop paying expired contracts.
- The department’s failure to include memos explaining why certain payments are being made.
- Outstanding payments to private businesses, including hotels, at higher-than-normal or longer-than-contracted rates.
- That nearly every expense request is approved under the department’s current framework, even if it appears unsubstantiated by need.
Trump specifically pointed at the Department of Education, the Department of Defense and, most of all, USAID. He said that DOGE could eliminate up to several billions of dollars in wasted spending.
Press correspondents pushed back occasionally, as Musk admitted to making mistakes and said his agency would act quickly to provide recourse.
He outlined his plans to continue cutting expenses and to require greater justification from those sending payments.
“We’re really just talking about adding common sense controls that should be present that haven’t been present. ... When you understand that really everything is geared toward complaint minimization, then you understand the motivations (behind these payments). ... And the fraudsters complain the loudest and the fastest,” he said.
He claimed that some members of the government bureaucracy are becoming inexplicably rich — richer than they should be from government salaries.
“I think the reality is, that they’re getting wealthy off of taxpayers' expense. That’s the honest truth of it,” Musk said.
Throughout the press conference, Musk’s young son X Æ A-Xii looked around at reporters, spoke to the president — who smiled back at him — and asked for attention from his father, who eventually hoisted him onto his shoulders.
Musk has 12 children with four different women, according to Fox. X, who was born in 2020, is his seventh child.
Musk and the United States government
Musk was in the limelight at Tuesday’s press conference — with Trump occasionally stepping in to either cast blame at “fraudsters” for stealing taxpayer dollars or to back Musk up.
“He’s a big businessman, he’s a successful guy. That’s why we want him doing (DOGE),” he told reporters.
When reminded of accusations that he is orchestrating a nontransparent takeover of the government, Musk said that he had received a government mandate through Trump’s election.
“We have a majority of the public voting for President Trump,” he said. “The people voted for major government reform ... and that’s what the people are going to get. They’re going to get what they voted for. And a lot of the time people don’t get what they voted for. But in this presidency, they are going to get what they voted for. And that’s what democracy is all about.”
Trump, seated at the president’s desk while Musk stood off to the side, smiled as Musk spoke.
When asked about conflicts of interest, Musk said DOGE was posting all its actions to its website in order to ensure complete transparency.