Member
Elon Musk Leads “Biggest Government Revolution” with DOGE’s Cost-Cutting Mission
Charlie Kirk Staff
3 days ago
Elon Musk and seven members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sat down for an interview with Special Report on Thursday, explaining the agency’s goal of cutting wasteful spending in the federal government.
“We want to reduce spending by eliminating waste and fraud and reduce the spending by 15%, which seems really quite achievable,” Musk told Special Report executive editor Bret Baier. “The government is not efficient, and there’s a lot of waste and fraud. So we feel confident that a 15% reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services.”
Musk, alongside DOGE members Steve Davis, Joe Gebbia, Aram Moghaddassi, Brad Smith, Anthony Armstrong, Tom Krause, and Tyler Hassen, gave insight into their work in different departments, including the IRS, the Interior Department, and Social Security.
“This is a revolution. And I think it might be the biggest revolution in government since the original revolution,” Musk said. “But at the end of the day, America’s going to be in much better shape. It’s going to be a fantastic future.”
According to DOGE’s website, as of March 27, the department claims to have saved Americans $130 billion, or $807.45 per taxpayer.
President Donald Trump created DOGE to make the government more efficient, cut costs, and eliminate unnecessary programs. The agency was given 18 months to carry out its work. So far, it has canceled multiple diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, cut consulting contracts, ended leases for underused buildings, and eliminated duplicate agencies.
During the Special Report interview, the team gave examples of their work, including federal employee credit cards.
“There are in the federal government around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees. This doesn’t make sense,” Davis explained. “So one of the things all of the teams have worked on is we’ve worked for the agencies and said, ‘Do you need all of these credit cards? Are they being used? Can you tell us physically where they are?'”
“Clearly there should not be more credit cards than there are people,” Musk responded.
The group also discussed their work related to government infrastructure, computer systems, Social Security, and financial management.
DOGE has faced strong criticism for its aggressive cost-cutting. Opponents argue that the department has too much power and should not be allowed to cancel contracts or cut programs without oversight.
“They may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that,” Musk said, insisting the department takes a careful approach. “Measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once.”
He acknowledged that mistakes happen but said they correct them quickly: “If we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all, that would be like saying someone in baseball has got to bat a thousand. That’s impossible.”
Musk also pushed back on accusations that DOGE operates outside the law, saying, “They’ll say what we’re doing is somehow unconstitutional or illegal or whatever. We’re like, ‘well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any.”
He added that DOGE keeps Congress “informed” and that cutting waste and fraud is in line with the law.
