Elon Musk got into a tense exchange Tuesday with CNBC anchor David Faber after he pressed the Tesla CEO on his leadership of President Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives and the efficacy of the efforts.
The nearly 30-minute interview on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” focused mostly on Musk’s outlook on Tesla and autonomous vehicles, but became tense toward the end when Faber brought up the backlash Musk faced this year for his work on Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
After answering a series of questions about how much DOGE actually cut in federal spending, Musk told Faber, “We are advisers. We are not — we’re not kings here.”
“I get it,” Faber responded, before Musk interjected, “So why are you attacking this? Given that we’ve made so much progress?”
“Not me,” Faber replied, “I’m not attacking. I’m just asking questions.”
The exchange began minutes earlier, when Faber mentioned Musk entered his work for DOGE thinking he could cut as much as a $1 trillion dollars in federal spending.
“You’re nowhere near that. It’s not really making the dent I think you may have thought you may have been able to achieve in terms of a true problem. Would you agree?” Faber asked.
“Well, first of all, it’d obviously ridiculous to assume that we could achieve that on Day 1. So, it’s only been four months,” Musk responded.
Following DOGE’s series of mass layoffs, data analyst and program spending cuts at federal agencies, Musk maintained DOGE has so far cut nearly $160 billion in spending.
“That’s your number that’s out there. A lot of people take issue with it,” Faber noted, adding he asked Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, which said DOGE saved between $5 billion and $32 billion when prompted.
Musk explained how the DOGE team got to this number, before Faber suggested, “Aren’t there more effective ways we ultimately could have gotten at it?”
“I mean by changing the retirement age or really going after some other parts of the budget?” Faber said.
“We’re trying to go after every part of the budget that’s … just some parts are more boring than others,” Musk replied, to which Faber said, “You’re about efficiency. I mean, that would take an act of Congress to really make changes [to the] significance I’m talking about.”
“In our opinion, we’ve created a $160 billion delta [fiscal] 2025 to [fiscal] 2026, very significant. That’s 16 percent of the way towards a trillion in five months,” Musk said. “And in order to make progress, we just need the consent, obviously, of not just the executive branch but also the legislative branch and the judicial branch.”
Shortly later, Musk accused Faber of attacking him, to which the CNBC anchor noted he wanted to “ask a lot more about Tesla.”
“I’m told you have a call at 1:30 [p.m. CDT]. I don’t know if you’ll be able to come back,” Faber said.
Musk came back during CNBC’s “Closing Bell” about 90 minutes later. Faber reintroduced Musk, and the interview transitioned to talks about Tesla’s self-driving prospects and why the company is not planning to buy ride-hailing platform Uber.
The exchange comes as Musk signals his time spent on DOGE may be winding down, allowing him to spend more time on his businesses such as Tesla, which saw its stock plummet this year amid the growing backlash against the CEO.
Earlier Tuesday, Musk said he is committed to being Tesla CEO five years from now during an appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Tesla board members launched a new search for a CEO to succeed Musk, but Tesla board Chair Robyn Denholm rejected the report.
