(Jan 10): Billionaire Elon Musk expressed doubt that his government efficiency panel in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration will actually be able to achieve US$2 trillion in cuts to the US federal budget, backtracking from a lofty target that the tech entrepreneur himself had floated.

“I think we will try for US$2 trillion. I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” Musk told Mark Penn, a political strategist and the chairman of Stagwell Inc, in an interview broadcast on X, adding that he thought “we’ve got a good shot” at getting US$1 trillion in cuts.

Musk’s downsized expectations come less than two weeks before Trump is set to be inaugurated and begin his second term. The tech entrepreneur along with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been tapped by Trump to lead a planned Department of Government Efficiency — Doge — tasked with reducing federal spending.

The US$2 trillion target is one Musk himself floated during a rally Trump held in New York’s Madison Square Garden days before the 2024 election, and a figure which instantly drew scepticism from budget experts.

That amount exceeds the figure Congress spends annually on government agency operations, including defence. Achieving that target would likely require savings from programmes such as Social Security and Medicare, which are popular with voters and which Trump himself vowed not to cut on the campaign trail.

In fiscal year 2024, the government spent US$6.75 trillion, with more than US$5.3 trillion of that stemming from Social Security, healthcare, defence and veterans’ benefits and interest on the debt.

Uploaded by Siow Chen Ming