Tech billionaire Elon Musk defended the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Tuesday, arguing that the commission had just become “the whipping boy” for the problems within the federal government.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he told The Washington Post in an interview.
“So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it,” Musk added.
The DOGE commission was launched after President Trump returned to office as an effort to overhaul the federal workforce, cut spending and reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Musk, the chief adviser for the initiative, said structural changes in Washington posed an “uphill battle' for his improvement plan and hurt his professional brand.
Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer owned by the billionaire, has been rocked in recent months with vandalism and riots at many of its showrooms across the U.S. Amid pushback on Trump's agenda, the company has also faced a dip in stocks.
“People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That’s really uncool,” the key Trump ally told the Post.
Tesla's shares have started to recover as Musk begins to step away from his White House advisory role. However, the billionaire has still remained critical of government functions, slamming House Republicans' “big, beautiful bill” — full of the president's legislative priorities — as a knock to his work with DOGE.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit… and it undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in a preview of an interview set to air this weekend on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
The bill seeks to raise the debt limit to $4 trillion — a provision in the spending package that has several Senate Republicans on edge as they prepare to take up the legislation.
“I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful,” Musk said, adding, “I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion.”
His comments also come as the tech guru said he would pull back on political spending after injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 election — a potential blow for Republicans moving forward.
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