SAN FRANCISCO: US President
Donald Trump’s department of govt efficiency (DOGE) was only “a little bit successful”, Tesla CEO
Elon Musk said on a podcast on Tuesday, adding that he would not lead the project again.
The billionaire was a major donor to Trump’s election campaign and became a close ally and adviser to his administration.
He led the DOGE team in seeking to slash the federal govt’s budget and workforce in the first five months of Trump’s second term. But the role and his political rhetoric sparked a backlash against him and Tesla, including vandalism of Tesla cars.
“I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically worked on my companies. And they wouldn’t have been burning the cars,” Musk said on the podcast. “We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful. We stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was entirely wasteful,” Musk said. Asked if he would go back and lead DOGE again, Musk said: “No, I don’t think so.”
Musk’s work for DOGE also sparked concerns among investors that he was not paying enough attention to Tesla as it faced slowing sales. Musk and Trump also had a bitter public falling out over the president’s sweeping tax and spending bill.