“It’s possible a lot of those people will be actually fired,” he said. “If that happened, that’s OK because that’s what we’re trying to do. This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run.”
Musk described the email as a “pulse check”. He believed some people on the public payroll were dead, fake or working in the private sector.
Elon Musk address the cabinet.Credit: AP
“We’re literally trying to figure out are these people real, are they alive and can they write an email?” he said. “If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email. This was not a high bar.”
Musk acknowledged the DOGE team had made mistakes, such as accidentally cancelling funding for ebola virus prevention overseas. “We restored [it] immediately, there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly.”
Trump took questions from a small pool of White House reporters for nearly an hour as the cabinet waited, including on a deal for the US to access Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which is expected to be signed when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
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While details of the agreement were still forthcoming, Trump indicated it would involve a US presence on the ground in Ukraine to extract the minerals.
“We’re going to be taking what we’re entitled to take,” Trump said. “It’s a great deal for Ukraine, too, because they get us over there, we’ll be on the land. There’s sort of automatic security [for Ukraine] because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people while we’re there.”
But actual peacekeeping missions would be left to Europe, Trump said. “My No. 1 thing is to get that [killing] stopped. My No. 2 thing is I don’t want to have to pay any more money.”
Trump was asked if it would send a dangerous message to Chinese President Xi Jinping – who regards Taiwan as part of China – if a peace deal allowed Vladimir Putin to keep Ukrainian territory he gained by force.
“You try and take it away,” Trump replied. “We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides … We want to get as much back as possible.”
Zelensky confirmed in a video message that he would meet Trump as part of the final negotiations on a deal. “It is crucial that America’s assistance is not stopped,” he said. “Strength is essential on the path to peace.”
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