President Trump on Monday dismissed questions over Elon Musk’s official title after the White House said the tech billionaire is not part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Elon is, to me, a patriot. So, you know, you could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want. But he’s a patriot, I mean took at the kind of things,” Trump told reporters, referring to cost-cutting efforts Musk has made.
Musk is an employee of the “White House Office” and serves as senior adviser to the president, according to a court filing from Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration. Fisher said that Musk “has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.”
The president also repeated his confidence in Musk and the DOGE team.
“I asked Elon, ‘Who are these DOGE people?’ He said they’re super brilliant computer people and they love the country. It’s simple,” Trump said.
Trump said that Musk will remove himself from conflict-of-interest situations when asked about DOGE and SpaceX employees working at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Defense Department, while the federal government has contracts with Musk’s companies.
“I’m just hearing about it and if there is… obviously I will not let there be any conflict of interest. He’s done an amazing job,” Trump said. “I told Elon, any conflicts you can’t have anything to do with that. So, anything to do with possibly even space, we won’t let Elon partake in that.”
Officials from Musk’s SpaceX visited the FAA this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced, just weeks after the deadly crash between a passenger jet and a military aircraft near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
While talking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump looked at a sheet of paper to outline cost-cutting efforts so far, claiming that over 4 million people between the age of 100 and 109 are receiving Social Security checks.
Trump went on to say that a number of people who are clearly dead are still getting Social Security checks, a point other White House officials have also been arguing in recent days.
He said more than one million people between 150 and 159 years old are receiving checks, and that more than 800 people who are 200 to 210 year old were getting checks. Trump said one person who would be 360 years old was getting a check.
“We have a very corrupt country and it’s a sad thing to say, but we’re figuring it out,” added Trump, who did not provide any paperwork to back up the Social Security numbers at Tuesday’s press event.
Musk and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have also said in recent days that a massive number of people are fraudulently getting Social Security benefits, partly because some of the benefits would be going to dead people.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Social Security Administration’s acting leader stepped down from her role over requests from DOGE to access recipient data, which she refused to provide to staffers.
