Musk's DOGE team emerges from the shadows
It has worked in the shadows for months, but Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has now offered the first peek behind the curtain of the government cost-cutting drive it launched on behalf of US President Donald Trump.
Musk, the Space X and Tesla tycoon, was accompanied by seven top aides in a joint interview to Fox News Channel's Bret Baier late Thursday. They rejected criticism of their disruptive foray through the administration.
Despite mass layoffs in the US federal government, which have sparked an outcry, they said they wanted to offer an "Apple Store-like" consumer experience to Americans.
"This is a revolution," declared Musk, the world's richest man.
DOGE has so far kept a low public profile, amid reports of teenage computer wizards sleeping in a huge building adjoining the White House, and demanding access to government departments.
What emerged on television was a slightly different picture -- a group comprised almost entirely of middle aged tech CEOs and Musk aides defending methods that have drawn widespread opposition.
They perched on chairs in two rows, with Musk flanked by two DOGE members in the front, and five on a raised platform behind.
The scene was a room in the White House complex designed for remote meetings -- one that a senior Trump aide had recently dismissed as former President Biden's "fake Oval Office" because he used it in a number of events.
Musk opened the interview, saying that DOGE aimed to finish its work by the end of May and that its goal was to be able to reduce federal spending by 15 percent, or from $7 trillion to $6 trillion.
- 'Great user experience' -
Then the others got their turn in the spotlight.
First up was Steve Davis, one of Musk's top lieutenants who is effectively the chief operating officer at DOGE.
A former aeronautics engineer who has followed Musk through several companies including Space X and the social media platform X, he has long kept a low profile.
"Some people say this shouldn't take a rocket scientist -- but you are a rocket scientist," Baier asked him.
"Used to be," replied Davis.
The next was Joe Gebbia, co-founder of flat-sharing app Airbnb.
Gebbia who said he had been tasked to overhaul a system in which government retirement documents were kept on paper in abandoned mine in Pennsylvania.
"We really believe that the government can have an Apple store-like experience," he said, referring to the sleek shops where the tech giant sells iPhones and other tech.
"Beautifully designed, great user experience, modern systems."
The DOGE experience has been very different for many federal workers.
At least 113,000 federal workers have been fired so far under DOGE's drive, according to a CNN tracker.
Musk's team has also been tasked with slashing federal spending -- and has effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
There have also been widespread criticisms about the process, including demands from DOGE that federal employees account for the work they have been doing in a bullet pointed memo or face the sack.
And DOGE has faced claims of causing disruption to the US social security system, and of overstating its savings.
Several recent polls indicate that most Americans disapprove of the disruption to the nationwide federal workforce.
Musk however was unrepentant, saying that the biggest complaints were coming from "fraudsters", without giving evidence.
The tycoon also used the interview to say that Trump's administration would crack down on people spreading "propaganda" about Tesla, after a number of incidents in which the electric vehicles have been vandalized in protest against Musk.
"Those are the real villains here, and we're going to go after them," said Musk, making a two-fingered shooting gesture with his hand.
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