Ever since the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) was announced, Elon Musk has been claiming he will use the organization to attack and dismantle large parts of the federal bureaucracy. However, Musk is already backtracking on his promises, claiming that his previously stated goal—to cut $2 trillion in spending from the federal budget—will probably not happen.
“I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one,” Musk said, during a recent live streamed conversation on his platform, X. He added that eliminating $2 trillion was “like, the best-case outcome.”
Those with knowledge of the federal budgeting process had already noted that Musk’s goal sounded quixotic, if not impossible. Indeed, the federal budget’s biggest line items—Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending—are all political third rails, and thus it isn’t easy to cut any of them. “A bird’s-eye view of the federal budget reveals that it is basically two things—a military, with a health and social insurance program attached to it,” the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler previously wrote.
Of course, maybe cutting popular social welfare programs is the plan—though it would be political suicide if it is. It’s certainly true that the right-wing libertarian organizations behind Trump are focused on cutting government benefits to Americans, which they characterize as government “waste.” Alex Nowrasteh, the vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, recently told a Utah newspaper that DOGE represents “a welcome opportunity to, at a very minimum, spotlight some areas where the federal government should be cut and where the interference of the federal government in our lives can be stepped back.”
To Nowrasteh, government “interference” is apparently when the Social Security Administration sends you a check in the mail. Cato recently published a report that suggested “raising the age of Social Security eligibility by three years, decreasing the size of Social Security inflation adjustments, slashing Medicare spending by one-third, and allowing enrollees to spend Medicare funds themselves,” Desert News reports. Musk has similarly floated the prospect of cutting mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare, despite the fact that these programs are overwhelmingly popular with Trump’s base. Trump has also suggested cutting taxes on Social Security payments, which would hasten the program’s financial doom.
Musk has also said he would like to see DOGE “delete” various regulatory agencies, although critics have noted this will be difficult, if not impossible. In general, Musk’s targets for deletion could end up being agencies that have investigated his companies. Musk’s firms have been probed by a variety of agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, and others.
That regulatory scrutiny is probably well placed, however, since Musk’s companies have been known to stir up controversy. Case in point, this week Tesla’s directors agreed to pay nearly a billion dollars to settle claims that they had previously overpaid themselves through stock options worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The legal case stemmed from a 2020 lawsuit filed by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit, which alleged that Tesla’s director compensation package was completely untethered from normal compensation practices. Reuters notes, for instance, that the board’s chair, Robyn Denholm, made as much as $280 million through her compensation package.