Elon Musk bemoans DOGE becoming Trump administration's 'whipping boy'
WASHINGTON – No longer a fixture at the White House, Elon Musk said people unfairly blame the Department of Government Efficiency he led for all problems in the Trump administration.
'DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,' Musk said in an interview with the Washington Post published May 27. 'So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.'
Musk's comments come as he's scaled back his work leading the government-slashing DOGE ‒ reducing the number of days he's in Washington, D.C., following massive profit losses for Tesla, his electric car company, after Musk became a polarizing figure as President Donald Trump's chief sidekick.
More: Elon Musk 'disappointed' by the cost of Trump's tax bill, says it undermines DOGE work
Musk took part in a blitz of media interviews this week from the headquarters for his company SpaceX in South Texas, coinciding with the latest test flight of his Starship spacecraft.
"The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,' Musk told the Post. 'I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least."
In a separate interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Musk criticized Trump's massive tax and spending bill that the president has dubbed the "big, beautiful bill." The bill, which includes Trump's domestic agenda on items ranging from border security to tax cuts, passed the House along party lines last week. It now heads to the Senate.
"I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
'I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion,' Musk said in the interview.
More: 'I've done enough': Elon Musk says he's going to spend 'a lot less' money on politics
Musk, the richest man in the world and a Republican mega-donor who helped bankroll Trump's 2024 campaign, said he intends to substantially cut back his political spending in future elections as he shifts his attention to his business empire.
"I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future," Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said on May 20 at the Bloomberg News at the Qatar Economic Forum. "I think I've done enough."
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elon Musk bemoans DOGE becoming the White House 'whipping boy'
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