Tech billionaire Elon Musk offered new details about the work of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Monday, while doubling down on the group’s efforts amid mounting criticism.
Musk sat for a rare television interview with Larry Kudlow, a former Trump administration official, on Fox Business Network, where he faced questions about DOGE’s inner workings and its efforts to slash the size of the federal government.
“We just basically follow the money. We look at the president’s executive orders, and we also just follow the money,” Musk said.
Musk said DOGE has “a little over 100” staffers, with a goal to get to 200. Those individuals were hired from the private sector with finance and technology backgrounds, he said.
No official list of DOGE staff has been published, though several of the confirmed staffers have ties to his other companies including Tesla and xAI, his artificial intelligence (AI) firm,.
Asked if DOGE had a presence in every government department, Musk replied, “Pretty much, yeah.” Musk said DOGE is attempting to “act broadly across all departments” rather than take on one department at a time.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said he is working with each of the Cabinet secretaries on DOGE’s work. Those remarks come amid reports earlier this month that some of Trump’s deputies are beginning to push back on Musk’s political authority and DOGE’s proposed cuts at their organizations.
“What we do is in consultation with the Cabinet secretaries and their departments,” Musk said. “We’re really trying to be sort of — we’ll refer to ourselves as tech support. You know, we’re really helping the department get a handle on things.”
Musk was at the center of a contentious Cabinet meeting last week in which he reportedly clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about making cuts to their respective agencies.
The Trump adviser has been a lightning rod for controversy in the early weeks of the new administration. While he is extremely active in posting on his social platform X, Musk had not sat for a one-on-one interview with a major media outlet since taking on a government role prior to Monday. He did take questions from reporters at another recent Cabinet meeting.
Musk acknowledged the scrutiny he is under for some of DOGE’s work at various agencies, calling it a “tough setting.”
“But I know we’re doing the right thing here. There’s a tremendous amount of waste and fraud in the government,” he told Kudlow, pointing to previous reports from the Government Accountability Office that he claims outline the billions of dollars of “fraud” in federal spending.
He claimed DOGE lists all of its actions on its official government website. While the panel has posted a variety of reports on its work, it has also reportedly deleted hundreds of claimed savings it once touted.
Musk told Kudlow he expected to continue DOGE’s work for another year, but he downplayed the idea of issuing a final report.
“The goal here is: Let’s not have America go bankrupt with waste and fraud,” Musk said. “So that’s what I’m here for.”
