Elon Musk says DOGE was ‘a little bit successful’

Washington - Billionaire Elon Musk believes his cost-cutting stint as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was “a little bit successful”, though he thinks he could have otherwise spent time focusing on his companies.

The Tesla and SpaceX founder made the remarks in a podcast interview released on Dec 9 with Mrs Katie Miller – a former DOGE spokeswoman and wife of Mr Stephen Miller, US President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff.

Working out of a small bureau in the executive office building, Mr Musk led DOGE for several months, taking a hatchet to the US federal workforce and agencies after Mr Trump returned to office for his second term.

But Mr Musk broke spectacularly with Mr Trump in June over the White House’s flagship tax and spending Bill, which he called “utterly insane and destructive”.

When asked if he would “do DOGE again”, Mr Musk answered: “No, I don’t think so.”

“I think instead of doing DOGE, I would’ve basically... worked in my companies, essentially. And they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”

The comment referenced incidents of vandalism reported at Tesla dealerships and charging stations while Mr Musk was at the helm of DOGE.

“We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful,” he told the podcast. “We stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was entirely wasteful.”

The actual savings from DOGE have been hard to quantify, with independent observers insisting the figures claimed by the US government – the DOGE website currently posts cuts of US$214 billion (S$277 billion) – fall short of actual savings. AFP