(March 28): Elon Musk, the billionaire running US President Donald Trump’s federal cost cutting effort, said he plans to slash US$1 trillion (RM4.43 trillion) in government spending by the end of May.

Musk, in an interview on Thursday with Fox News’ Bret Baier, said he believes that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can find that level of cost savings within 130 days from the start of Trump’s term, which began on Jan 20.

That presents an ambitious goal that would require slashing more than half of the US$1.8 trillion the US spent on non-defence discretionary programmes in 2024.

“I think we will accomplish most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame,” Musk said on Baier’s show Special Report.

Musk is a special government employee, a classification for temporary federal workers who are only supposed to work 130 days out of the year in their roles.

Musk said he wants to cut 15% of the government’s annual spending — which amounted to US$6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024. That’s a reduction of about US$1 trillion. Musk said he is confident he can slash that amount “without affecting any of the critical government services”.

The interview came days after Trump said that he expected to be “satisfied” with DOGE’s cuts in the coming month or two. The president has also said DOGE’s overhauls are not “necessarily a very popular thing to do”, an acknowledgement of the political risk associated with Musk’s plans for wide-ranging cuts.

Much of the federal government’s spending is on mandatory programmes, such as Medicare and Social Security, where there is little leeway to make cuts. Musk has said, without citing evidence, that those programmes are overrun with fraud and waste.

DOGE has deployed at least 10 staffers to the Social Security Administration to identify waste. But the data does not support claims of widespread fraud: from 2015 through 2022, Social Security estimated that it made almost US$72 billion in improper payments — less than 1% of benefits paid, according to an inspector general report last year.

The Fox interview marked the first time that many of the key people working with DOGE have spoken publicly about their work. Steve Davis, a long-time Musk aide, was identified by Baier as the DOGE chief operating officer. Joe Gebbia, the billionaire who co-founded Airbnb and is on Tesla Inc’s board of directors, also joined the interview.

So far, the accounting from Musk’s own team has shown they are still far from the US$1 trillion mark. The DOGE website, which has been plagued with errors and overstatements, lists about US$22 billion in contract savings. They claim about US$130 billion in overall cost reductions, which aren’t itemised.

Musk’s DOGE has also spearheaded a wave of federal government lay-offs that agencies have begun implementing in recent weeks.

Musk sought to downplay the job cuts, saying that “almost no one’s gotten fired”. 

Agencies in recent weeks have announced a spate of workforce reductions. Earlier on Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would cut 10,000 jobs. Earlier this month, the Education Department said it was cutting half of its employees and the Small Business Administration is eliminating 43% of its workforce. The Department of Veterans Affairs said it would terminate 80,000 workers and the Treasury Department said in a court filing that large-scale cuts are planned.

DOGE has faced a series of legal setbacks as judges have halted some of their cuts. Musk’s team has also been blocked from accessing some systems and databases, including at the Social Security Administration.

Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee