Latest news with #federalspending
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
‘It's like a way of life': Elon Musk says DOGE work will continue as he exits role
Elon Musk ensured he will remain 'a friend and an advisor" to the Trump administration as he announced the end of his time as a special government employee, during which Musk oversaw DOGE's sweeping cuts to the federal workforce as part of efforts to slash US federal spending. Musk delivered a farewell speech in the Oval Office where President Donald Trump thanked Musk with a token of gratitude on behalf of the United States.
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
Trump lauds Musk in Oval Office as billionaire's turbulent tenure ends
WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump praised billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to cut federal spending during a joint press conference in the Oval Office on Friday, as the Tesla CEO departs the administration after a chaotic tenure that saw the elimination of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in contracts. Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency, disrupted numerous agencies across the federal bureaucracy but ultimately fell far short of the massive savings he had initially promised. A White House official said on Wednesday that Musk would be leaving the administration. "Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations," Trump said from behind the Resolute Desk, as Musk stood to his right, wearing a black DOGE hat and a t-shirt that read "The Dogefather" in the style of the movie "The Godfather." In recent days, Musk had prompted some frustration among White House officials by criticizing Trump's sweeping tax and spending bill as too expensive. Some senior aides, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, saw Musk's remarks on the tax bill as an open break from the administration, with Miller particularly irked by the comments. There was no evidence of tension during the joint appearance on Friday, where Trump said Musk would continue to play a role in his administration. "Elon is really not leaving," Trump said. "He's going to be back and forth." Initially, the White House and senior aides insisted Musk, the world's richest man, was a key figure who wasn't going anywhere. But more recently, they began pointing to the expiration of his 130-day mandate as a special government employee, which was set to end around May 30, as a natural endpoint. Musk has said he intends to devote most of his energy to his business empire, including Tesla and SpaceX, after some investors expressed concern that DOGE was occupying too much of his time. He has also said he plans to ratchet back his political spending, after he spent nearly $300 million backing Trump's presidential campaign and those of other Republicans in 2024. Musk initially claimed DOGE would slash at least $2 trillion in federal spending. Four months into its efforts, DOGE now estimates it has saved $175 billion. But the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. U.S. Treasury summaries reviewed by Reuters show that the agencies targeted by DOGE have cut about $19 billion in combined spending compared to the same period last year, far below Musk's original target and amounting to just about a half of 1% of total federal expenditures. Musk said on Friday that he would continue to serve as a Trump adviser and expressed confidence that DOGE would eventually achieve much deeper savings. "This is not the end of DOGE but really the beginning," he said.
Associated Press
a day ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Trump gives Elon Musk an Oval Office sendoff
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump bid farewell to Elon Musk in the Oval Office on Friday, 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 U.S. 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. Despite the upheaval, Musk also fell far short of his goals. After promising to cut $1 trillion or even $2 trillion in federal spending, he lowered expectations to only $150 billion in the current fiscal year. It's unclear whether that target has been hit. The DOGE website tallies $175 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 donation s. 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 Thursday evening. '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.' ____ Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
Musk said he was chainsawing government spending. It was more like a trim
Elon Musk once famously wielded a chainsaw on stage in a theatrical demonstration of his effort to drastically cut U.S. federal spending under President Donald Trump. As he leaves government, official data shows he achieved something closer to a trim with scissors. In the four months since Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began slashing federal spending and staffing, a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19 billion compared with the same period last year, according to U.S. Treasury Department summaries reviewed by Reuters. That is far below Musk's initial goal of $2 trillion in savings and amounts to about a half of 1% of total spending by the federal government. Musk said on Wednesday he is leaving the administration but that its cost-cutting work will "only strengthen over time." It remains to be seen, however, how enthusiastically Trump's cabinet secretaries will continue to downsize their departments. DOGE says it pulled the plug on more than 26,000 federal grants and contracts that are worth about $73 billion, while more than 260,000 government workers have been bought out, taken early retirement or been fired. But the DOGE tallies have been riddled with errors, according to reviews by numerous budget experts and media outlets, including Reuters. That has made them difficult to verify, and some of the announced cuts are not saving the government any money because judges have reversed or stalled them. That leaves the Treasury Department's daily reports on how much the government is spending as the clearest window into the scope of the administration's cost-cutting. The view they offer so far is modest: The government has spent about $250 billion more during the first months of Trump's administration than it did during the same period of time last year, a 10% increase. And even some parts of the government Trump has cut the most deeply are, for now at least, spending more money than they did last year. One big factor driving costs is largely outside Trump's immediate control: interest payments on the United States' growing pile of debt, which amount to about $1 in every $7 the federal government spends. Debt interest payments are up about 22% from a year ago. Spending on Social Security, the safety-net program for the elderly and disabled, totaled about $500 billion since Trump's inauguration, up 10% from a year earlier. To be sure, the view offered by the Treasury Department's daily reports is incomplete. Many of the cuts DOGE has made to the federal workforce, grants and contracting will reduce what the government will spend in the future but do not show up in its checkbook today. For example, while thousands of workers have taken buyouts, the government will continue to pay their wages until October. So far, the Labor Department has estimated there were only about 26,000 fewer people on federal payrolls in April than were on the books in January, after adjusting the figures for typical seasonal swings. Tallying savings from future cuts, however, is seldom straightforward. 'It could be that in the future we never replace these workers and we save billions of dollars, or it could be that they come back and it's even more expensive than before,' said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan budget analysis organization at Yale University. The White House declined to offer an explanation for DOGE's figures. Spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement that 'DOGE is working at record speed to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, producing historic savings for the American people.' Reuters estimated the administration's impact by tallying outlays at agencies that had been targeted for cuts and whose spending had dropped from the same time last year. Among the agencies hardest hit are the Department of Education, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other independent agencies. Rachel Snyderman, an expert on fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the spending declines at agencies could be reversed if the Trump administration doesn't get congressional approval to cancel outlays from this year's federal budget, as required by law. AN $11 BILLION EDUCATION CUT The most obvious sign that the Trump administration is making a dent in federal spending is in the Education Department, which Trump has ordered shut down. The administration cut the department's staff by about half in March. DOGE's website lists 311 Education Department grants and contracts it says it has eliminated for a savings of about $1.6 billion, though it is not clear how it arrived at those figures. Some cuts have not stuck. A federal judge in March ordered the administration to restore some of the grants it had cut, and another judge this month ordered it to rehire 1,400 workers. Still, the Education Department under Trump has spent close to $11 billion less than it did over the same period last year, the Treasury reports show, far more than what DOGE says it has cut. One reason could be that layoffs have made it harder for the government to process payments for special education and low-income schools. School districts that have sued over the cuts alleged that states were already experiencing slowdowns in receiving money. Another factor for the reduced outlays: The department has stopped handing out the $4.4 billion that remains to be distributed from the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in previous years to help schools weather the COVID-19 crisis. The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment. OTHER AREAS DOGE HAS CUT Other agencies targeted in Trump's overhaul are also starting to show declines in their spending compared with the same time last year. Spending is down about $350 million at the CDC and about $1 billion at the National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration has moved to slash spending across those agencies, cancelling grants and ending leases for office space. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported terminating close to 2,000 grants that planned to disperse more than $20 billion. Many of the grants were to boost labs that fight new infectious diseases, or to fund state mental health programs. Some $14 billion of the grant money had already been spent prior to the termination, with roughly $7 billion effectively frozen, according to a Reuters analysis of the government's tallies. The administration has effectively dismantled USAID, which handled most U.S. foreign assistance, firing nearly all of the agency's employees and cancelling most of its humanitarian aid and health programs, though federal courts have forced the government to continue making some payments. USAID spending is down about 40%, to about $4.6 billion, from last year. Spending at the State Department – where DOGE says it has cut nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts – is also down about 20% from 2024. WHY WE CAN'T KNOW MORE Measuring the impact of the administration's actions is difficult because many cuts will not yield savings for months or years even as spending elsewhere increases. Spending on federal employee salaries, for example, is up by more than $3 billion under Trump. Some of the grants and contracts DOGE cut were due to be paid out over several years, and many remain the subject of lawsuits that will determine whether they can be cut at all. DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion, but the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. It says the figure includes workforce cuts, interest savings and other measures it has not itemized. It is also hard to know exactly how much the government would have spent if the administration had not started cutting. (Reporting by Brad Heath, Jason Lange and Andy Sullivan in Washington and Grant Smith in New York, Editing by Ross Colvin and Matthew Lewis)
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
Musk said he was chainsawing government spending. It was more like a trim
WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - Elon Musk once famously wielded a chainsaw on stage in a theatrical demonstration of his effort to drastically cut U.S. federal spending under President Donald Trump. As he leaves government, official data shows he achieved something closer to a trim with scissors. In the four months since Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began slashing federal spending and staffing, a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19 billion compared with the same period last year, according to U.S. Treasury Department summaries reviewed by Reuters. That is far below Musk's initial goal of $2 trillion in savings and amounts to about a half of 1% of total spending by the federal government. Musk said on Wednesday he is leaving the administration but that its cost-cutting work, opens new tab will "only strengthen over time." It remains to be seen, however, how enthusiastically Trump's cabinet secretaries will continue to downsize their departments. DOGE says it pulled the plug on more than 26,000 federal grants and contracts that are worth about $73 billion, while more than 260,000 government workers have been bought out, taken early retirement or been fired. But the DOGE tallies have been riddled with errors, according to reviews by numerous budget experts and media outlets, including Reuters. That has made them difficult to verify, and some of the announced cuts are not saving the government any money because judges have reversed or stalled them. That leaves the Treasury Department's daily reports on how much the government is spending as the clearest window into the scope of the administration's cost-cutting. The view they offer so far is modest: The government has spent about $250 billion more during the first months of Trump's administration than it did during the same period of time last year, a 10% increase. And even some parts of the government Trump has cut the most deeply are, for now at least, spending more money than they did last year. One big factor driving costs is largely outside Trump's immediate control: interest payments on the United States' growing pile of debt, which amount to about $1 in every $7 the federal government spends. Debt interest payments are up about 22% from a year ago. Spending on Social Security, the safety-net program for the elderly and disabled, totaled about $500 billion since Trump's inauguration, up 10% from a year earlier. To be sure, the view offered by the Treasury Department's daily reports is incomplete. Many of the cuts DOGE has made to the federal workforce, grants and contracting will reduce what the government will spend in the future but do not show up in its checkbook today. For example, while thousands of workers have taken buyouts, the government will continue to pay their wages until October. So far, the Labor Department has estimated there were only about 26,000 fewer people on federal payrolls in April than were on the books in January, after adjusting the figures for typical seasonal swings. Tallying savings from future cuts, however, is seldom straightforward. 'It could be that in the future we never replace these workers and we save billions of dollars, or it could be that they come back and it's even more expensive than before,' said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan budget analysis organization at Yale University. The White House declined to offer an explanation for DOGE's figures. Spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement that 'DOGE is working at record speed to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, producing historic savings for the American people.' Reuters estimated the administration's impact by tallying outlays at agencies that had been targeted for cuts and whose spending had dropped from the same time last year. Among the agencies hardest hit are the Department of Education, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other independent agencies. Rachel Snyderman, an expert on fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the spending declines at agencies could be reversed if the Trump administration doesn't get congressional approval to cancel outlays from this year's federal budget, as required by law. The most obvious sign that the Trump administration is making a dent in federal spending is in the Education Department, which Trump has ordered shut down. The administration cut the department's staff by about half in March. DOGE's website lists 311 Education Department grants and contracts it says it has eliminated for a savings of about $1.6 billion, though it is not clear how it arrived at those figures. Some cuts have not stuck. A federal judge in March ordered the administration to restore some of the grants it had cut, and another judge this month ordered it to rehire 1,400 workers. Still, the Education Department under Trump has spent close to $11 billion less than it did over the same period last year, the Treasury reports show, far more than what DOGE says it has cut. One reason could be that layoffs have made it harder for the government to process payments for special education and low-income schools. School districts that have sued over the cuts alleged, opens new tab that states were already experiencing slowdowns in receiving money. Another factor for the reduced outlays: The department has stopped handing out the $4.4 billion that remains to be distributed from the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in previous years to help schools weather the COVID-19 crisis. The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment. Other agencies targeted in Trump's overhaul are also starting to show declines in their spending compared with the same time last year. Spending is down about $350 million at the CDC and about $1 billion at the National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration has moved to slash spending across those agencies, cancelling grants and ending leases for office space. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported terminating close to 2,000 grants that planned to disperse more than $20 billion. Many of the grants were to boost labs that fight new infectious diseases, or to fund state mental health programs. Some $14 billion of the grant money had already been spent prior to the termination, with roughly $7 billion effectively frozen, according to a Reuters analysis of the government's tallies. The administration has effectively dismantled USAID, which handled most U.S. foreign assistance, firing nearly all of the agency's employees and cancelling most of its humanitarian aid and health programs, though federal courts have forced the government to continue making some payments. USAID spending is down about 40%, to about $4.6 billion, from last year. Spending at the State Department – where DOGE says it has cut nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts – is also down about 20% from 2024. Measuring the impact of the administration's actions is difficult because many cuts will not yield savings for months or years even as spending elsewhere increases. Spending on federal employee salaries, for example, is up by more than $3 billion under Trump. Some of the grants and contracts DOGE cut were due to be paid out over several years, and many remain the subject of lawsuits that will determine whether they can be cut at all. DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion, but the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. It says the figure includes workforce cuts, interest savings and other measures it has not itemized. It is also hard to know exactly how much the government would have spent if the administration had not started cutting.
