Elon Musk has denied claims that he is leading a “hostile takeover” of the United States government, during an extraordinary joint press conference held with President Trump at the White House.
Musk, the billionaire technology entrepreneur, mounted a defence of his work leading the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), taking questions from the US media for the first time since Trump’s inauguration.
“The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get,” he said, wearing a black Make America Great Again cap. “That’s what democracy is all about.”
Musk, who was appointed by Trump to lead the cost-cutting department rather than being elected for the role, described the “unelected” bureaucracy as subverting the “will of the people”.
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In the first few weeks of Trump’s presidency, Musk has led an effort to dismantle federal agencies, buying out hundreds of thousands of workers from their jobs. He said he was talking to the president “almost every day” to make sure his team is following his wishes.
Democrats have described Doge as a “billionaire-led coup” and criticised its lack of transparency. “Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” Chuck Schumer, the minority leader of the US Senate, said last week.
The president said on Tuesday that he thought it was “crazy” that the Doge had been able to find so much “fraud” and “waste” in the federal government, arguing that he had no idea they would “find this much”.
“We found fraud and abuse,” Trump said of the Doge’s work scrutinising the financing of various federal departments, without providing evidence.
Musk said the Doge was investigating federal employees who had “high net-worths despite their low pay”.
He described “fraudsters” receiving money from the Treasury and suggested, without evidence, that employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which the Doge has hollowed out, had been taking kickbacks on money that went out.
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Critics have pointed out that the Space X and Tesla chief executive is getting involved in agencies that deal with his companies. When asked about personal conflicts of interest, Musk said “transparency is what builds trust”.
Musk, who brought one of his 12 children to the briefing, appeared with Trump in the Oval Office as the president prepared to sign an executive order concerning the Doge.
Meanwhile, Musk’s government cost-cutters have begun the process of razing the Department of Education by cancelling grants and taking over computer systems.
Doge agents have started “actively dismantling” education programmes, according to a member of Congress.
“They are in the building, on the sixth floor, cancelling grants and contracts,” Melanie Stansbury, the top Democrat on the Doge subcommittee, told The Huffington Post.
Stansbury, a representative from New Mexico, said the Trump administration “has been running drills for the last couple of weeks, planning for this”. She said she expected the department would be “dissolved in the coming days” and added: “It’s not legal. They know it’s not legal but they’re doing it anyway.”
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A federal judge in Washington is set to rule on a lawsuit by the University of California Student Association that seeks to bar the Doge from accessing the department’s computers.
In a hearing on Tuesday the judge expressed doubt that the students would be able to show that Musk’s team had harmed them by improperly gaining access to their data, and allowed the Doge to continue its work.
Trump has promised to abolish the education department and turn its power over to individual states. He has previously said the federal government should not have control over schools because it was staffed with bureaucrats “that hate our children”.
The White House is considering an executive order that would direct Trump’s education chief to dismantle the agency as far as possible while pushing Congress to pass legislation that would officially shutter the department. However, such a bill is likely to fall short of the necessary supermajority of 60 votes.
While dismantling a federal department requires congressional approval, the president could strip it of many of its responsibilities and distribute them around other agencies, making it redundant in all but name.
The Doge announced on X, which is owned by Musk, on Monday that it would cut nearly $900 million in grants for the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
The IES is used by state and local departments of education, school districts, colleges and researchers to better understand student achievement, enrolment and other functions that shape the education system.
“The Department of Education terminated 89 contracts worth $881mm,” the Doge posted, alleging that “one contractor was paid $1.5 million to ‘observe mailing and clerical operations’ at a mail center”.
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It came after dozens of education department employees affiliated with diversity and equity efforts were made redundant last week.
“Ronald Reagan campaigned on ending the federal Dept of Education, which was created by Carter in 1979, but it was bigger when Reagan left office than when he started!” Musk posted last week. “Not this time. President @realDonaldTrump will succeed.”
Patty Murray, a former teacher and member of the committee on health, education, labour and pensions, said she will be “sounding the alarm” to fight back.
“An unelected billionaire is now bulldozing the research arm of the Department of Education — taking a wrecking ball to high-quality research and basic data we need to improve our public schools,” the Washington senator said. “Cutting off these investments after the contract has already been inked is the definition of wasteful.”
