Trump gives Elon Musk an Oval Office sendoff
President Donald Trump bid farewell to Elon Musk in the Oval Office on Saturday, providing a cordial conclusion to a tumultuous tenure for the billionaire entrepreneur.
Musk is leaving his position spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, and he'll be rededicating himself to running his businesses, including electric automaker Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and social media platform X.
Trump credited Musk with 'a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington" and said some of his staff would remain in the administration. Musk, who wore all black, including a T-shirt that said 'The Dogefather', nodded along as the president listed contracts that had been cut under his watch.
'I think the DOGE team is doing an incredible job," Musk said after accepting a ceremonial key from the president. "They're going to continue to be doing an incredible job.'
He left a searing mark on the federal bureaucracy, including thousands of employees who were fired or pushed out. Some government functions were eviscerated, such as the US Agency for International Development, which had provided a lifeline for impoverished people around the world. Boston University researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have already died as a result of the USAID cuts.
ADVERTISEMENT
Despite the upheaval, Musk also fell far short of his goals. After promising to cut $1 trillion (NZ$1.6 trillion) or even US$2 trillion (NZ$3.3 trillion) in federal spending, he lowered expectations to only US$150 billion (NZ$251 billion) in the current fiscal year.
It's unclear whether that target has been hit. The DOGE website tallies US$175 billion (NZ$293 billion) in savings, but its information has been riddled with errors and embellishments.
Trump said Musk had led the 'most sweeping and consequential government reform effort in generations". He suggested that Musk is 'really not leaving' and 'he's going to be back and forth' to keep tabs on what's happening in the administration.
Musk, the world's richest person, recently said he would reduce his political donations. He was Trump's top donor in last year's presidential campaign.
Trump appeared eager to end Musk's service on a high note.
'This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way," Trump wrote on social media on Friday. "Elon is terrific!"
As a special government employee, Musk's position was designed to be temporary. However, he had speculated about staying 'indefinitely', working part-time for the administration, if Trump still wanted his help.
Musk has brushed off questions about how DOGE would continue without him, even suggesting it could 'gain momentum' in the future.
'DOGE is a way of life,' he told reporters recently. 'Like Buddhism.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
2 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Russia, Ukraine step up the war on eve of peace talks
On the eve of peace talks, Ukraine and Russia sharply ramped up the war with one of the biggest drone battles of their conflict. A Russian highway bridge was blown up over a passenger train and an ambitious attack was carried out on nuclear-capable bombers deep in Siberia. After days of uncertainty over whether or not Ukraine would even attend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Defence Minister Rustem Umerov would sit down with Russian officials at the second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war - but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting. Amid talk of peace, though, there was much war. At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russia's Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up over a passenger train heading to Moscow with 388 people on board. No-one has yet claimed responsibility. Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base deep in Siberia on Sunday (local time), a Ukrainian intelligence official said, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4300km away. The official said the operation involved hiding explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds and loading them onto trucks that were driven to the perimeter of the air bases. A total of 41 Russian warplanes were hit, the official said. RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES AIR BASE ATTACKS, SAYS FIRES PUT OUT Ukraine did not tell the Trump administration about the attack in advance, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official. Russia's Defence Ministry acknowledged on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine had launched drone strikes against Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday. It said the attacks repelled the assaults in all but two regions — Murmansk in the far north and Irkutsk in Siberia - where "the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire". The fires were extinguished without casualties. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said. Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the air force said. Russia said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and open source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450sq km of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months. US President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not - potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers - which have far less cash and much smaller stocks of weapons than the United States. According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022. Trump has called Putin "crazy" and berated Zelenskyy in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia. In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters. According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine. The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory. Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100sq km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio.
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
Public Broadcasting Service sues Trump to reverse funding cuts
By Jonathan Stempel , Reuters US President Donald Trump takes questions outside the West Wing of White House in Washington, DC, on 8 May 2025. File photo. Photo: JIM WATSON Public Broadcasting Service has sued Donald Trump over the US president's executive order to cut its federal funding , calling it an unconstitutional attack that would "upend public television". In a complaint filed on Friday (local time) in the Washington, DC federal court, PBS and a public TV station in Minnesota said Trump's order violated the US Constitution's First Amendment by making the president the "arbiter" of programming content, including by attempting to defund PBS. The 1 May order "makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS, because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech", PBS said. "That is blatant viewpoint discrimination." Its programming has included Sesame Street , Mister Rogers' Neighborhood , Frontline and several Ken Burns documentaries, including The Civil War . Member stations also broadcast public affairs shows, like Washington Week. Trump's order demanded that the taxpayer-backed Corporation for Public Broadcasting cut federal funding to PBS and NPR, short for National Public Radio. All three entities are nonprofits. PBS said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides 16 percent of its US$373.4 million annual budget. It also said the funding ban would apply to local member stations, which provide 61 percent of its budget through dues, including millions of dollars in federal funds. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was "creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers' dime. Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS". NPR filed its own lawsuit on 27 May to block Trump's order. Formed in 1969, PBS has 336 member stations, including the plaintiff Lakeland PBS, which serves about 490,000 people in northern and central Minnesota. The executive order was part of Trump's effort to sanction entities he believed were opposed to his political agenda. Trump said that, by funding PBS and NPR, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ignored Americans' right to expect that taxpayer dollars going to public broadcasting "fund only fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news coverage". The White House separately accused PBS and NPR of using taxpayer money to spread "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news'". In its complaint, PBS said Trump's order "smacks of retaliation for, among other things, perceived political slights in news coverage". The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives funding from Congress two years in advance to shield it from political interference. It sued Trump last month, after he sought to fire three of its five board members. The case is Public Broadcasting Service et al v Trump et al, US District Court, District of Columbia, No. 25-01722. - Reuters
1News
16 hours ago
- 1News
Musk spotlighted US govt spending, but cut less than he wanted
Elon Musk's effort to dramatically cut US government spending is expected to fall far short of his grand early pronouncements, and perhaps even his most modest goals. It didn't have to be that way. According to experts across the ideological spectrum, a major problem was a failure to deploy people who understood the inner workings of government to work alongside his team of software engineers and other high-wattage technology talent. Even that might not have achieved Musk's original target of US$2 trillion, which is roughly the size of the entire federal deficit. Musk, whose last day spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency is Friday, slashed his goal for savings from US$2 trillion to $1 trillion to finally only $150 billion. The current DOGE results put Musk's efforts well short of US president Bill Clinton's initiative to streamline the federal bureaucracy, which saved the equivalent of US $240 billion by the time his second term ended. ADVERTISEMENT Clinton's effort reduced the federal workforce by more than 400,000 employees. According to government estimates, the total civilian federal workforce — not counting military personnel or postal workers — reaches 2.4 million people. It also seems clear that Musk was unable to change the overall trajectory of federal spending, despite eliminating thousands of jobs. The Yale Budget Lab, in an analysis of Treasury data, shows money is flowing out of government coffers at an even faster pace than the previous two years. 'It was an impossible goal they were trying to achieve. They kept lowering the standards of success," said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "A more knowledgeable DOGE team wouldn't have made insane promises that would be impossible to keep. They set themselves up for failure.' At a White House event with Trump on Friday, Musk said his team would stay in place and renewed the goal of reaching at least US $1 trillion in cost savings. 'This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning. The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. It's permeating throughout the government,' Musk said in the Oval Office, wearing a black blazer over a T-shirt emblazoned with 'The Dogefather.' ADVERTISEMENT 'We do expect over time to achieve the $1 trillion.' The early evidence suggests that the goal will be exceedingly difficult to reach. Elon Musk speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 30, 2025, in Washington. (Source: Associated Press) By relying chiefly on IT experts, Musk ended up stumbling through Washington and sometimes cutting employees vital to US President Donald Trump's own agenda. Immigration judges were targeted at the same time the administration was trying to accelerate deportations of people in the US illegally. Likewise, technologists with the Bureau of Land Management were purged from the Department of Interior, despite their significance to clearing the way for petroleum exploration, a Trump administration priority. In many cases, fired employees were rehired, adding administrative costs to an effort aimed at cutting expenditures. ADVERTISEMENT Had Musk's team been staffed with experts on what positions are required under federal law to continue efforts such as drilling and immigration enforcement, it could have avoided similar mistakes across multiple departments, Nowrasteh said. 'I just think there were a lot of unforced errors that a more knowledgeable DOGE team would have avoided,' Nowrasteh said. Grover Norquist, president and founder of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, had a more favorable perspective on Musk's work, saying it should be judged not only by the total dollars saved but his ability to spotlight the issues. 'When you find the problem, you don't know how far the cancer has spread. You just found a cancer cell,' he said. Norquist said it's up to Congress to take the baton and set up a permanent structure to continue where Musk is leaving off. 'I just think it's going to be seen five to 10 years from now as something very big and very permanent,' Norquist said, 'and that was done only because of a guy like Musk, who can come in and shake things up.' Elaine Kamarck, a key figure in Clinton's government efficiency push, said their efforts were guided by more modest fiscal targets than DOGE. ADVERTISEMENT The initiative was led by Vice President Al Gore, and it was aimed at making the government more responsive to people who used it, and focused heavily on updating antiquated hiring and purchasing procedures. It took years and carried into Clinton's second term. 'We went about it methodically, department by department and, yes, used some outside analysts, but they were seasoned government civil servants who knew about government in general,' Kamarck said. Clinton's effort saved US$136 billion by the end of Clinton's second term, the equivalent of more than $240 billion today, and contributed to budget surpluses for each of the final four fiscal years he was in office. Kamarck said she expects what she called Musk's 'chaotic' approach will reveal mistakes or oversights that could create crises down the road, such as a transportation problem, response to a natural disaster, or delivery of entitlement benefits. 'These are the things that really hurt presidents, and they are increasing the probability that something is going to happen,' Kamarck said.
