WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to give billionaire Elon Musk more power over the federal workforce, giving Musk even more political influence despite concerns from Democrats.
With Musk standing by his side, Trump praised the tech billionaire for the work he has done with the Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE), despite backlash from Democrats.
The new executive order directs federal agencies to “coordinate and consult” with Musk’s DOGE to cut jobs and limit hiring, according to a summary provided by the White House. All agencies will be ordered to “undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force” and limit hiring to only “essential positions,” according to the summary.
In a remarkable scene, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, took questions from reporters inside the Oval Office for over 30 minutes while Trump stayed mostly silent.
Reporters pressed Musk about his lies about the USAID providing condoms to Gaza and he acknowledged that some of what he has said about alleged waste in the government has turned out to be lies.
“Some of the things I say may be incorrect and should be corrected. Nobody’s batting 1.000,” Musk responded. “We all make mistakes, but we’ll act to quickly correct any mistakes.”
The executive order along with Musk’s comments did little to quiet concerns from Democrats that Musk is violating the Constitution, including by trying to shutter federal agencies without the approval of Congress. Along with the USAID, other organizations in Musk’s crosshairs include the Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Education Department.
Musk said it was not a conflict of interest for him to intervene in the operations of the Defense Department, for which SpaceX is a major contractor.
“First of all, I’m not the one filing the contract. It’s people at SpaceX,” he said. “If you see any contract where the where it was awarded to SpaceX and it wasn’t by far the best value for money for the taxpayer, let me know, because every one of them was.”
SpaceX had $3.8 billion in federal contracts last year, according to government data.
Trump deflected about whether he would eventually need congressional approval to cut spending.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “If I need a vote of Congress to find fraud and abuse, it’s fine with me. I think we’ll get the vote.”
