Latest news with #Musk-championed
New York Post
a day ago
- Business
- New York Post
Scott Bessent dishes on Musk clash, says he's more 'ninja'-like whereas Elon 'fancies himself more of a Viking'
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed his beef with billionaire tycoon Elon Musk as a stylistic polarity, describing himself as a nimble ninja-like operative while the Tesla and SpaceX founder 'fancies himself more of a Viking' who moves fast and breaks things. The two men had gotten into a fiery shouting month back in April, which MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon claimed resulted in Musk body checking Bessent — something which the Treasury secretary hasn't yet confirmed. Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here! 'We have had disagreements, but we both want to get to the same place,' Bessent said on The Post columnist Miranda Devine's 'Pod Force One' podcast. 'We both want to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse in government.' 'The Silicon Valley mode of operation is move quickly and break things. I always say here at Treasury we move deliberately and fix things,' he went on. 'I think Elon's probably fancies himself more of a Viking. I think I'm more of a ninja.' 3 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted that he has had differences with tech baron Elon Musk. POD FORCE ONE/NY Post In the public eye, Bessent had been defensive of the Musk-championed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cost-cutting initiative from the onslaught of public criticism it endured. Behind-the-scenes, Bessent was said to have been skeptical of some of the bold claims Musk had been making and the men allegedly clashed over personnel. In April, the two business gurus pitched different candidates to lead the Internal Revenue Service and President Trump ultimatley favored Bessent's pick, according to the New York Times and Washington Post. After that meeting, Bessent confronted Musk, Bannon told the Washington Post. 'Scott said, 'You're a fraud. You're a total fraud,' Bannon claimed, noting that Musk got physical with Bessent 'like a rugby player' and the pair had to be split up. 3 Elon Musk formally exited his government role late last month. Getty Images Bessent said the claims that he called Musk a fraud were 'fake news' during a congressional hearing last week, in which Democrats needled him over the ordeal. However, he's also been coy about whether he ever came to blows with the world's richest man. 'Elon set the pace and DOGE is a movement,' Bessent told Devine, striking a conciliatory tone towards Musk. 'He was vilified by the press, by the Tesla customers, and I think that probably put stress on him.' 'I think of DOGE as an ethos and to the extent that Elon has departed physically, I think that ethos is there and the momentum for what he's done yield bigger and bigger savings over time.' 3 Elon Musk had been keenly interested in Treasury, utilizing its payment system to spot government bloat. AFP via Getty Images Musk formally ended his time as a special government employee last month and went berserk on Trump before later expressing some remorse. Trump also publicly confirmed that there was an 'argument' between Musk and Bessent, but didn't say there was a physical altercation. Following Trump's 2024 election victory, Musk had backed then-Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to helm the Treasury Department over Bessent. Trump later made Lutnick the secretary of the Department of Commerce. 'Look, everybody's very passionate about doing the best job for President Trump and the American people,' Bessent told Devine about the dynamic.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The DOGE Bait and Switch
Donald Trump's much-ballyhooed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) does not actually exist. The program's official status is more significant than it might seem, because it reflects the yawning gap between the president's promises of fiscal restraint and the reality of what can be accomplished without new legislation. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk first pitched the DOGE idea last August after Trump said he might appoint the world's richest man as a policy adviser. "I am willing to serve," Musk wrote on X, his social media platform, above an AI-created image of himself standing at a lectern labeled "Department of Government Efficiency." That imaginary department's acronym alluded to dogecoin, a Musk-championed cryptocurrency that was originally created as a joke but became "too important to laugh off," as Barron's put it in 2021. Musk's DOGE concept followed a similar trajectory after Trump took him up on his offer, putting him in charge of a project that Trump said would bring "drastic change" to the federal government. From the beginning, DOGE's mission was ambiguous. While Musk had said the Trump administration could cut "at least 2 trillion" from annual federal spending, which totaled nearly $7 trillion in FY 2024, Trump's vision sounded decidedly more modest. After the election last November, Trump said DOGE would "drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout" the federal budget, resulting in "a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy." A week later, Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who at that point was supposed to help run DOGE, clarified that they would focus on "driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws." Trump dampened expectations further on his first day in office, when he issued an executive order "Establishing and Implementing the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency.'" The scare quotes were appropriate. Trump's order renamed the United States Digital Service (USDS), a "small team" that President Barack Obama created in 2014 to make government websites "more consumer friendly" and "help upgrade the government's technology infrastructure." That team, Trump declared, would henceforth be known as the United States DOGE Service. Trump's order also established "the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization." That Musk-run organization—confusingly subsumed under the USDS, a previously obscure unit within the Executive Office of the President—is charged with "modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity." This is what became of Musk's so-called department. Its shoehorned nature was necessary because only Congress can create new executive-branch departments. It likewise remains true that only Congress can deliver the sort of spending cuts that Musk originally imagined. The national debt held by the public is already about the same size as the entire U.S. economy, and tackling that problem is impossible without addressing the main components of the federal budget, including Social Security, Medicare, and military spending. Trump's commitments, reflected in his campaign promises and the 2024 Republican platform, seem to rule out any such changes. Worse, Trump, after adding an estimated $8.4 trillion to the national debt during his first term, has proposed policies that could add another $7.8 trillion. In this context, DOGE's dramatically downgraded mission makes sense. That does not mean Musk cannot achieve significant savings by attacking "waste and fraud." But his splashiest attempts so far have involved politically motivated cuts that don't amount to much, may not stick because of legal challenges, or both. The Trump administration's controversial attempt to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) epitomizes both problems. While foreign aid is a perennially appealing target for conservatives, the entire USAID budget accounts for less than 1 percent of federal spending, and the agency cannot be legally abolished without congressional approval. While rooting for Musk's success, Ramaswamy says the now-solo DOGE chief's "technology-focused approach" contrasts with his own "legal, constitutional, legislative focus in downsizing government." No matter what Musk achieves with the former, averting fiscal catastrophe will still require the latter. © Copyright 2025 by Creators Syndicate Inc. The post The DOGE Bait and Switch appeared first on
