On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that he would be signing an executive order granting tech mogul Elon Musk increased control over the federal workforce, further expanding Musk’s growing political influence.
Standing beside Musk in the Oval Office, Trump lauded the work of the Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE), an office Musk now oversees. Trump emphasized that he wanted Musk to take on an even larger role, despite ongoing legal challenges to DOGE from labor unions and Democratic state attorneys general over the office’s legal authority.
The new executive order mandates federal agencies to “coordinate and consult” with DOGE to reduce the size of the workforce and limit new hiring. Each agency will be required to develop plans for significant workforce reductions, with hiring restricted to “essential positions,” according to a summary from the White House.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest individual, is using federal power while continuing to manage his private-sector businesses. His role as a “special government employee” allows him to sidestep some of the disclosure requirements that apply to full-time government workers. During the announcement, Musk wore a black “Make America Great Again” hat, and one of his 11 children was present in the room.
Trump and Musk held a lengthy, freewheeling press conference, answering questions for over 30 minutes, though much of the discussion remained vague, without addressing specifics regarding the alleged fraud DOGE claims to have uncovered.
Musk has consistently criticized what he calls waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government, though many of the examples he’s shared on social media have lacked detailed evidence. For instance, the DOGE account on X (formerly Twitter) recently claimed the administration had terminated 89 contracts valued at $881 million, but provided no details on what those contracts were or why they were considered wasteful.
Independent fact-checkers have questioned some of Musk’s allegations of government waste. His claim that the U.S. spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza was widely debunked for lacking credible proof.
When asked about the condom claim, Musk admitted that some of his accusations about government waste had been incorrect. “Nobody’s going to bat a thousand,” Musk remarked. Earlier in the day, he had also posted several crude jokes on X.
Musk further explained that he had collaborated with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to restore funding for Ebola and HIV prevention, describing the decision to pause this funding as a “mistake.” He emphasized that while mistakes are inevitable, they are quickly corrected. “We will make mistakes, but we also fix the mistakes very quickly,” he said.
The pair did little to address concerns regarding the constitutionality of their actions, particularly the potential violation of the separation of powers, including efforts to close federal agencies without Congressional approval and withholding funds that Congress had appropriated. Among DOGE’s targets for elimination are the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Department of Education.
In response to a reporter’s question about potential conflicts of interest related to Musk’s involvement with the Defense Department, given that SpaceX holds significant government contracts, Musk insisted that he did not personally handle contracts. “First of all, I’m not the one filing the contract. It’s people at SpaceX,” Musk explained. He also defended SpaceX’s contracts, saying, “If you see any contract where it was awarded to SpaceX and it wasn’t by far the best value for money for the taxpayer, let me know, because every one of them was.”
SpaceX secured $3.8 billion in federal contracts last year, according to government data.
Trump dismissed a reporter’s query about whether congressional approval would eventually be necessary to carry out spending cuts.
