Elon Musk Details The Difference Between DOGE And Past Efforts To Address Waste

White House senior advisor Elon Musk told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was “making great progress” towards finding $1 trillion in waste.

President Donald Trump established DOGE in a Jan. 20 executive order, after announcing last November that Musk would serve as chairman. Musk said the agency’s major difference was that it was actually “getting things done.”

“It’s software people, information security, software people, and finance. It’s basically finance and technology,” Musk told Kudlow. “Frankly, I can’t believe I’m here doing this. It’s kind of bizarre. I think we have this enormous federal budget deficit, and it’s a $2 trillion deficit. It keeps growing. Our interest payments are higher than our Defense Department budget. That was the real wakeup call for me, looking and seeing that interest payments on the national debt exceeded the Defense Department budget.”

Musk told Kudlow he had “great difficulty” running his other businesses, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X, while also advising Trump.

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The Trump administration announced plans for layoffs that targeted over 95% of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) workforce Feb. 6, the New York Times reported. Democratic members of Congress joined protests outside the headquarters of the USAID and the Treasury Department Feb. 4 after Musk announced plans to close down USAID following a brief Jan. 31 standoff between USAID employees and DOGE staffers.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday morning that over 5,000 contracts for USAID would be cancelled in a post on X, with the remainder to be directly administered by the State Department.

“I’m here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we’re making good progress. Our savings at this point exceed $4 billion a day,” Musk said. “So, it’s pretty significant.”

“Do you think you’ll get to $1 trillion in savings?” Kudlow asked, with Musk responding, “Yeah, unless we’re stopped, we’ll get to $1 trillion in savings.”

DOGE’s efforts to reign in wasteful spending at government agencies, including at USAID and the Social Security Administration and reducing the size of the federal government, have been challenged in courts with mixed results. A federal judge recently blocked a memo sent to federal agencies instructing them to dismiss thousands of probationary workers, while other courts have allowed DOGE to carry out its activities.

Musk said DOGE was not just “writing a report,” but seeking to effect actual change, saying the agency was “making good progress.”

“We’re just getting things done as opposed to writing a report. Reports don’t mean anything. You’ve got to actually take action,” Musk said. “So, entitlement spending, which is what most of the federal spending is, entitlements, that’s the big one to eliminate and that’s a half trillion, maybe 600 or 700 billion a year. That’s also a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here, and they’re turning them into voters.”

“This is why the Democrats are so upset about the situation, because they’re losing. If we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants then they will leave, and they’ll lose voters,” Musk said.