Musk – whose team of young staff ran the ruler over foreign aid agency USAID before Trump decided to gut it – conceded he had made errors, such as when he called attention to $US50 million spent on “condoms in Gaza”. That money actually went to HIV prevention in Mozambique’s Gaza province.
“Some of the things I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” Musk said. “[But] I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million of condoms to anywhere.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, with his son X Æ A-Xii in the Oval Office.Credit: Bloomberg
A claim by Musk and Trump that $US59 million was spent on a luxury New York hotel for illegal migrants was also “misleading”, The New York Times found, as the money also covered food, security and other shelters.
The money was legally allocated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year, but the Trump administration fired the agency’s chief financial officer and three other senior staff members anyway.
Previous claims were also misleading, including an assertion news outlets such as Politico received federal government funding in exchange for supportive stories about the Democrats, when in fact the money was a business transaction for subscriptions.
The billionaire SpaceX and Tesla founder brushed aside concerns about a lack of accountability, especially regarding multibillion-dollar government contracts his companies received over the past decade. He said all DOGE’s actions were publicly posted on X or the department’s website.
President Donald Trump reiterated an assertion he would prevent Elon Musk from auditing an area where there was a conflict of interest.Credit: Bloomberg
“Transparency is what builds trust. Not somebody simply asserting trust,” Musk said. “You can see: am I doing something that benefits one of my companies, or not. It’s totally obvious.”
Trump backed Musk, arguing his success in business made him an ideal candidate to audit government excess. He repeated an earlier promise that Musk would not be allowed to inspect a particular area if the White House determined there was a conflict of interest; however, there were no details about a process in place to identify such conflicts.
Musk’s outsized role in the second Trump administration has led some Democrats to call him “President Musk”, a move designed to get under the president’s skin. This week’s cover of Time magazine depicts Musk behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
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Musk rejected suggestions he was undermining democracy as an unelected private citizen. He described his mission as “restoring democracy” – but in line with the agenda advanced by Trump before the election.
“You couldn’t ask for a stronger mandate from the public,” he said. “The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get.”
The president signed an executive order giving Musk’s team even greater powers to shrink the size of the US government workforce. It declared: each agency can hire only one person for every four that leave; the hiring plan must be formulated with the DOGE team leader; and the team leader must approve any decision to fill a vacancy. All federal agencies must also prepare to initiate “large-scale reductions in force”, the order says.
