President Donald Trump held a lengthy press conference in the Oval Office to thank Elon Musk for his time serving as head of the Department of Government efficiency (DOGE).
“Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history,” said Trump in the Oval Office.
Trump said, “With DOGE, Elon has delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington. He has installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people and computers.”
Critics like to point to Musk as a ‘Nazi” or perceived failures because the trillion dollar savings didn’t happen in the first 100 days. The truth is that DOGE has changed the mindset of the government, at least part of it, and now the American people have eyes wide open with regard to waste, fraud, and abuse of their tax dollars. In addition to billions in savings vast changes have been made, and are being made to inefficient and fraudulent processes.
Musk said, “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning. My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end. It was a limited time thing. But, the DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only go stronger. It's a new way of life. They're going to continue doing an incredible job, and I'll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to the president.”
“I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the President would like. I expect to remain a friend and an advisor, and certainly if there's anything the President wants me to do, I'm at the President's office,” Musk said.
“I'm confident that over time we'll see a trillion dollars of savings and a trillion dollars of wasted board reduction. The accomplishments of the DOGE team thus far, in terms of FY25 and FY26, are over $160 billion, and that's climbing,” said Musk. “We expect that to probably go over $200 billion soon.”
“The mindset and the senior ranks of every federal department, has really changed. And with Elon's guidance, they're helping to detect fraud slash waste and modernized broken and outdated systems,” said Trump. “Elon's really not leaving, he's going to be back and forth, I think, I have a feeling. It's his baby, and I think he's going to be doing a lot of things.
“DOGE has helped to transform the Federal government by eliminating waste and bloat that has been ignored for years. DOGE is playing a key role in eliminating millions of taxpayer money being misspent, including contracts for illegal alien facilities that sat empty during the Biden Border invasion and funding for hotel rooms to house illegal gang members. DOGE’s mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse continues!" said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
Musk’s role fell under a special category of federal worker called Special Government Employee (SGE). SGE status was created in 1962 to allow the federal government and independent federal agencies to bring in people with special skills for specific short-term roles. SGEs may work no more than 130 days in a 365-day period although they can continue to work over several years.