Musk calls Doge only ‘somewhat successful’ and says he would not do it again | Elon Musk

Elon Musk said the aggressive federal layoff program known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) that Donald Trump led early in his second term was only “mildly successful” and that he will not lead the project again.

Musk said he didn’t want to repeat the exercise. to talk The podcast is hosted by Katie Miller, a rising-profile right-wing figure who is a Doge advisor and is married to Donald Trump’s hard-line anti-immigration deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.

Asked if Doge achieved what he hoped for, Musk said: “We were somewhat successful. We were successful to some extent.”

Doge created chaos and trouble in the government machinery in Washington DC and until May More than 200,000 federal workers have been laid off and nearly 75,000 have accepted buyouts as a result of purges by Musk’s outside team of mostly young zealots.

The group said it had recorded Billions of dollars in public spending were spent, but due to a lack of public accounting, it was impossible for experts to verify these claims. It was estimated to save far less public money than Musk and Trump boasted. Musk eventually backed away from Doge, and the team subsequently appeared to quietly disband.

Musk, the CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla, who also controls social media platform

In a series of cautious responses to Miller’s questions, Tesla’s founder mused on the outcome if he had not taken on the role of Doge or expressed so much political rhetoric.

Musk has been widely criticized by voices on the left for undermining government institutions to achieve greater bureaucratic efficiency as part of the Trump agenda and working on a scenario enabled by the Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025. He stated that the Doge task force is ideologically opposed to liberal initiatives such as refugee services and transgender rights.

But he told Miller on Tuesday’s podcast: “I think instead of doing Doge, I would basically work on my companies. And they wouldn’t burn cars,” Musk said, referring to the outbreaks of vandalism that occurred after Musk took over.

After a shooting incident at a Tesla dealership in Oregon in March, police said they were aware that dealerships “were being targeted in Oregon and across the country for political reasons.”

Tesla’s shares lost nearly half their value between January and March, when Doge was launched, but have since rebounded.

The billionaire’s SpaceX company is expected to raise more than $25 billion through an IPO next year; It’s a move that could push the rocket maker’s valuation past $1 trillion.

During the podcast, Musk said that despite the disagreements and online flame war with Trump after he left office in late May, he was not resigned to his time as a dedicated government employee. “I can’t say I had any super illusions at first,” he said.

Last month, the Doge was officially dissolved, eight months before the end of his term.

In February, Musk held a chainsaw aloft at a conservative conference to symbolize his efforts to cut billions of dollars from the $7 trillion federal budget.

“We stopped a lot of financing that really didn’t mean anything, that was a complete waste of money,” Musk told Miller.

But when asked if he would go back and do it again, he said: “No, I don’t think so. I know what I know now.”