(New York) Billionaire Elon Musk, boss of the automobile manufacturer Tesla, the space company SpaceX and the social network
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To the question “would you do it again?” “, asked during the conservative program The Katie Miller Podcast, the richest man in the world replied: “No, I don’t think so.”
“I think that instead of doing DOGE, I would have simply (…) worked on my companies,” he explained about this ad hoc commission dedicated to reducing federal spending.
“And they would not have burned the cars,” he noted.
As a result of his role in the Trump administration, Tesla sales plunged worldwide, stores were the target of protests and damage, vehicles on the road were damaged and charging stations burned, and there were calls for a boycott.
Former advisor and spokesperson for the DOGE commission, before being employed by the billionaire in the private sector, Katie Miller is married to the deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller.
Mr. Musk nevertheless considered that DOGE had had “a little success”.
“We stopped a lot of funding that just didn’t make sense, that was completely wasteful,” he said.
This commission, launched upon the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, aimed to cut public spending and reduce bureaucracy.
Elon Musk had mentioned during the presidential campaign, in which he participated extensively, some 2,000 billion dollars in cuts, before lowering his expectations to 1,000 billion.
In the end, the amounts are much lower according to the commission’s own counter: $214 billion, as of the last update on October 4.
But an independent site, the “DOGE Tracker,” had a total of just $12 billion in May when Elon Musk left the commission amid acrimonious tensions with the president and problems for Tesla.
To make these savings, the administration has increased departure incentives and layoffs of civil servants, drastically reduced or eliminated public agencies and made massive cuts in international aid.
