Elon Musk, DOGE team credit fed workers for helping trim waste, fraud: ‘There is conflict, but that is the exception’
DOGE has its day!
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team expressed their gratitude Thursday to the federal employees partnering with the cost-cutting agency as they work around the clock to eliminate wasteful spending and modernize the workforce.
The billionaire tech entrepreneur, 53, and several male staffers told Fox News host Jesse Watters that they’ve seen increased willingness from federal workers and agencies to collaborate with DOGE to improve government operations — noting that conflict is often a rare exception that’s heightened in the media.
“We’d like to just give a big thank you to all the government employees who are helping reduce the waste and fraud, because this is — we really couldn’t do it without you,” Musk said during a 10 p.m. staff meeting inside DOGE headquarters that was highlighted on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
“I’m not trying to sort of say all government employees are bad. That’s absolutely not the case. It’s just that there actually just does need to be a serious effort to reduce the waste and fraud. And we’re just making that happen,” the DOGE chief continued.
“There is conflict, but that is the exception. That’s actually true of history in general. There’s — people study the wars a lot, but actually most of the time there wasn’t a war. It’s just not as exciting.”
Members of his team said that while they’ve lost friendships and experienced some pushback from certain federal agencies — it’s all worth it in the end to serve their country.
Though one agency has been particularly resistant to their efforts: The United States Institute of Peace.
“I mean, any given company, any given organizational name is going to kind of be the opposite of the title,” Musk quipped as one of his workers explained finding loaded guns inside the agency’s headquarters as workers deleted a vast amount of financial information.
They cited congressionally approved funds being spent on private jets and a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban — but didn’t clarify what the contracted services were for. Their findings have since been referred to the Department of Justice and FBI
“I think it’s a great example, because most Americans don’t know what’s going on at a lot of these smaller agencies,” one DOGE-ian told Watters.
“And this is, I think, the most extreme case of some of the wasteful spending that we’re finding.”
Other agencies, like the Federal Employees Retirement System, have been much more open to enhancing and streamlining their workload from an archaic filing system to a digital platform.
“It’s very prehistoric, like dinosaurs would think this is kind of old,” Musk said.
The tech mogul said his staffers have and assured DOGE will remain a “long-term enterprise” even after his status as a special government employee ends on May 30.
“It’s a long-term enterprise because if we take our eye off the ball, the waste and fraud will come roaring back,” Musk said.
“We’re trying to have it be such that the funding is removed, the grants are gone. There’s a lot of work required to restart the waste and fraud. And that will at least slow it down.”
The richest man alive has boasted $160 billion cuts in annual spending after settling a $1 trillion goal — though the precise amount of money that DOGE has cut is unclear.
President Trump tapped the X owner to lead the temporary organization to discover and eliminate wasteful government spending, fraud and abuse.
Musk quickly tore through Washington during Trump’s initial months back in the White House — leading efforts to gut the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its 10,000 employees.
He also backed the Office of Management and Budget on a similar mission to shutter the 1,700-person Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while analyzing the federal bureaucracy from the Education Department to the Pentagon.
Opponents, however, have expressed concern that the South African-born businessman wasn’t elected by the American public, yet significantly altered the executive branch and fired thousands of government workers without congressional approval.
Harsh critics have targeted Tesla cars and charging stations in recent months, with the Justice Department charging suspected vandals and arsonists as domestic terrorists.
Musk has served as an unpaid temporary government employee since DOGE formed – and is expected to remain an informal adviser to the group when his tenure comes to an end.
