Trump suggests Elon Musk's DOGE could be shut down long before its expected closing date
The Department of Government Efficiency may end after only 130 days, well before its original schedule, as Musk's work at DOGE has become increasingly unpopular among some of the president's constituents. 'There will be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work and do it, as we say, with a scalpel," Trump told reporters on Monday.
President Donald Trump may already be looking to pull the plug on Elon Musk's controversial DOGE project just two months into his administration.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump suggested his Cabinet secretaries already have learned everything from the Tesla CEO they needed to boost efficiency.
Soon they would be in a position to remove the training wheels and steer their departments without the input from Musk, whose work at DOGE has become increasingly unpopular among some of the President's constituents.
The President has had to defend DOGE cuts affecting voters in some Republican strongholds while simultaneously lobbying for steep tariff hikes—proposals that have dragged the stock market into the red and fueled recession fears.
Trump recently voiced some displeasure with Musk, demanding the Tesla CEO adopt a more surgical approach rather than wield a chainsaw, as he did onstage with fellow cost-cutter Argentine President Javier Milei.
'A lot of the people that are working with DOGE are the secretaries—you know, the heads of the various agencies—and they've learned a lot,' Trump said during a briefing in the Oval Office, adding some of his cabinet staff may try to retain a few of the leftover DOGE personnel advising them.
'There will be a point at which the secretaries will be able to do this work and do it, as we say, with a scalpel.'
The remarks came in response to a question about what may happen to DOGE once Musk's term of service ends.
The world's richest man is currently classified as a Special Government Employee and is limited to working no longer than 130 days out of the entire year; this distinction is important because SGEs benefit from laxer ethics and compliance rules than regular government employees.
If Trump uses Musk's impending departure to pull the plug on DOGE entirely, it would bring the project to an end long before the envisioned cutoff date on July 4, 2026, when the country celebrates its 250th Independence Day—just before the 2026 midterm election campaigning begins in earnest.
In November, Trump dubbed DOGE nothing less than the 'Manhattan Project of our time' when he first confirmed that Musk would join his administration to run the unofficial body named after the ticker symbol of Musk's favorite crypto meme coin.
'Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time,' Trump wrote of the effort to radically shrink the size of the federal government, initially by $2 trillion and later scaled down to $1 trillion.
Even before he assumed his role, Musk gave a sense of the pain to come when he penned a column in which he called for 'mass headcount reductions' to the 2 million-strong federal workforce.
Many of the savings in waste and fraud he claims to have unearthed have been disputed or debunked, including the famous example of a supposed $50 million payment to send condoms to Hamas terrorists.
But it was his claim that the Social Security entitlement program—people's retirement funds—was the 'biggest Ponzi scheme of all time' that appeared to most worry Americans.
In an effort to drum up support for his team's efforts, Musk appeared on Fox News with seven other senior assistants at DOGE last Thursday to dispute the wrecking-ball-style characterization of their cuts.
'I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dolllars' worth in that time frame,' Musk said, asked about his 130-day term of office. 'Our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week—and so far we are succeeding.'
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
23 minutes ago
- CNBC
China and U.S. trade officials to hold talks in London
U.S. President Donald Trump's top trade officials are meeting their Chinese counterparts in London on Monday for talks aimed at resolving an ongoing trade dispute between the world's two largest economies. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are representing the U.S. China's foreign ministry said on Saturday that Vice Premier He Lifeng, Beijing's lead trade negotiator, will be in the U.K. between June 8-13, and that a meeting of the "China-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism" would take place. The talks come after Trump last week said that he had held a lengthy phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping as both look to avert a full-blown trade war. Diplomatic efforts by both sides have ramped up after weeks of heightened trade tension and uncertainty after Trump announced sweeping import tariffs on China and other trading partners in April. Beijing retaliated, and a tit-for-tat escalation in duties ensued before both sides agreed in Geneva in May to temporarily slash duties and facilitate talks. At the time, the U.S. tariff on Chinese imports was cut from 145% to 30% , while China's levies on U.S. imports were lowered from 125% to 10%. China and the U.S. have since repeatedly accused each other of violating the Geneva agreement, with Washington saying Beijing was slow to approve the export of additional critical minerals to the U.S., while China criticized the U.S. imposing new restrictions on Chinese student visas and additional export restrictions on chips. U.S. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Sunday said that the London talks would focus on moving forward with the Geneva agreement, noting the two sides' strategic interests in each other's markets.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Endless Flip-Flops Reveal His Recklessness
THERE'S NO ESCAPING the pattern in this run of recent headlines: 'Trump reverses plan to close more than 30 mine safety offices' 'Here are the 22 times he's changed his mind on tariffs' 'Trump reverses USDA office closures' 'Reversing on layoffs, National Weather Service adding staff' Plus, this whole set: 'Trump turns sharply on Musk'; 'Trump threatens to cut Musk's government contracts'; 'Trump, White House aides signal a possible détente with Musk'; 'Trump tells CNN he's 'not even thinking about' Musk and won't speak to him 'for a while'; 'Trump wants to get rid of the Tesla he bought to show support for Elon Musk.' That was all in less than a week, and telescoped to just 48 hours for the Trump-Musk blowup-détente-never-mind cycle. This is the bris you never wanted to attend, the circumcision you would never be able to unsee. And don't blame me for that metaphor, blame John Oliver. In late April, the Last Week Tonight host worked himself into a hilarious (and entirely warranted) frenzy over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s mass destruction of the Department of Health and Human Services. Asked about various program cuts on CBS, RFK Jr.'s answered with variations on 'I didn't know that, that's something that we'll look at.' After the fact. Because weighing programs and people on the merits beforehand 'takes too long and you lose political momentum,' the nation's top public health official said. Oliver's take: 'The health secretary should not be learning what he just did like some guy at a bachelor party being told what happened the night before. 'Do you not remember, bro? You spoke French well, then you pissed on a grave, fucked a bike rack, and cut $750,000 of research money for kid diabetes! You went wild!'' A photo of a mohel about to circumcise a baby boy then shows up onscreen. 'The rules for restructuring HHS should be the same as the ones for a bris!' Oliver almost shouts, his arms pumping, his voice rising, his eyes practically popping out of his head. 'It is crucially important to know exactly what you are cutting! Speed is just not the most important thing!' Or, as any seamstress or carpenter would tell you, measure twice, cut once. Join now EVEN BEFORE MUSK BRANDISHED a chainsaw, moved fast and broke much of the government, no one paying even an iota of attention would have expected Trump to be a model (mohel?) of careful consistency. Still, the speed and significance of the reversals has been shocking, and they appear to be standard operating procedure. In other words, we can expect them to continue until Trump exits the White House, whenever that is. One of the first and worst moments came when the Department of Energy discovered it had fired hundreds at the agency that oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile. Oops. And then had trouble finding them to hire them back. Oops again. Cancel foreign student visas? Require in-person Social Security visits? Fire a thousand National Park Service workers? Close more than thirty mine safety offices? Offload seven thousand Internal Revenue Service workers, hobbling its ability to collect taxes? Never mind times five. Court orders played a role in some of these reversals, but many others arose from delusional thinking (about phone fraud running rampant at Social Security, though there was hardly any) or magical thinking (as in, who needs nuclear stockpile safety overseers, or rangers at national parks that fuel local economies, or the people who know how to make sure taxes owed are taxes paid). The breaking point for me was an NPR story (yes, the NPR that's currently on Trump's chopping block) about the National Weather Service. Who knew we needed to know the weather? Not the DOGE crew. Who knew America has a hurricane season? Possibly not the nation's disaster aid chief. Who assumed AI would save the day, not realizing that AI can't function without the data produced by the federal government and its actual human employees? Apparently not Musk's tech bros. Who knew that Americans might want or need weather information outside of business hours? And really, who could have predicted that the NWS would now be hiring to fill in gaps left when five hundred people were fired? Or that many of the applicants will probably be fired probationary employees reapplying for their old jobs? That's what a union official told NPR. I've gotten this far without mentioning TACO, the Trump Always Chickens Out acronym that Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong coined to describe investment strategy amid Trump's constant tariff flip-flops. Trump hates the phrase, but if the flip-flop fits. . . And it does. Very well. Share TO LONGTIME POLITICAL OBSERVERS, by which I mean those of us so old we remember pre-MAGA times, it seems strange that the constant flip-flops have not ruined, scarred, or even dented Trump. Nothing has, and nothing probably will, as we've seen all too often. In this case, maybe it's because everyone already knows he's so deeply flawed, or because his decisions are so terrible that flipping in a different direction is all to the good. Especially if you're a savvy financial player who buys low every time a Trump-made disaster strikes. Because, TACO. My context here is the 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign, which I covered as a reporter on his bus and plane. Maybe it was a simpler time, or maybe Republicans were simply ruthless in driving home a message, but one unfortunate turn of phrase turned Kerry—a combat veteran—into a 'flip-flopper' who didn't support the troops. It was truly a doozy of a sentence, the classic 'I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.' 'I had one of those inarticulate moments,' Kerry said. He tried to explain. He wanted the expenditure funded at least in part by rolling back some of George W. Bush's tax cuts. But the phrase conveyed weakness and dithering, and Team Bush made sure it stuck. They even sold Kerry flip-flops at the Republican convention that year. The National Museum of American History owns a pair as part of its collection: It's a safe bet that those anti-Kerry flip-flop shoes will survive the coming cultural culling as Trump tries to remake the Smithsonian museums in the image of MAGA and himself. It's also a safe bet that the museum won't be adding Trump flip-flops in future years. It would be too exhausting to create souvenir flip-flops for every Trump flip-flop—and you'd need an entire museum to house them all. Share this article with a friend or family member, or post it to social media: Share
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Florida farmers now plowing over perfectly good tomatoes as Trump's tariff policies cause prices to plummet
Tony DiMare's family owns 4,000 acres of tomato farms across Florida and California. Sadly, his Florida crops are not looking good — mowed over and left to rot, like tomato vines across the state. But it's not growing conditions that are the problem. It's economic ones. Don't miss Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 6 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) DiMare told WSVN 7 Miami that President Donald Trump's tariff and immigration policies are driving farmers to abandon their crops. In January, he warned that Trump's crackdown on migrants would squeeze farmers, who rely on migrants to pick produce. 'We have to secure our borders south and north, but you have to have a workforce in this country,' he told the Financial Post. Deportations devastate farm workforce About 50% of farm workers in the U.S. are undocumented migrants — including skilled supervisors and machine operators — according to Farmonaut, a farm technology company. As the Trump administration proceeds with mass deportations of undocumented migrants, there are far fewer pickers in the fields, and crops are left to go bad. One spoke to WSVN about fellow migrants leaving Florida each day. He spoke on condition of anonymity, concerned he might be deported himself "A lot of people are really afraid, and sometimes they come, sometimes they don't come,' he said. 'And the harvest is lost because it cannot be harvested.' The labor shortage also means Florida farmers have to pay more for labor. At the same time, they're getting less money for their produce due to Trump's tariff policies. Tariffs upset traditional supply chain From January through April, Trump's threatened tariffs triggered Mexican suppliers to double or even triple tomato exports to the U.S. — before tariffs went into effect. The result? The U.S. market was flooded with Mexican tomatoes. Florida farmers saw the wholesale price of a box of tomatoes plummet from $16 per box to $3 or $4. DiMare said tomato farmers need around $10 or $11 per box to break even. 'You can't even afford to pick them right now,' said Heather Moehling, president of the Miami-Dade County Farm Bureau. 'Between the cost of the labor and the inputs that goes in, it's more cost-effective for the farmers to just plow them right now.' It's not just Florida tomato growers feeling the pinch. Canada has imposed a 25% tariff on U.S. watermelons in retaliation for Trump's tariffs on Canadian products. DiMare knows one watermelon grower who's lost Canadian customers to Mexican watermelon suppliers as a result. Prepare for higher food costs Farmonaut notes that the impacts of tariffs and immigration policy on farmers will have a knock-on effect in grocery stores. If U.S. farmers don't have enough workers to harvest crops, Americans will have to buy more imported produce, and pay more due to tariffs. The Food Policy Center at Hunter College of New York City warns that the resulting surge in food prices will drive inflation — 'stressing household budgets across the nation, and particularly hurting families in areas with high food insecurity." While farmers have few options but to hope the political upheaval will end, consumers should prepare to mitigate those costs. One way to do that is to buy a membership in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organization. You'll be supporting local farmers and getting local, less costly produce delivered to your door. In addition to shopping frugally by clipping coupons and shopping sales flyers deals, you can get creative in the kitchen. For example, you can limit food costs by planning weekly menus around seasonal and affordable foods. What to read next Like what you read? Join 200,000+ readers and get the best of Moneywise straight to your inbox every week. Subscribe for free.
