DOGE head Elon Musk hit back at the criticism faced by Democrats over DOGE cuts and blamed the bureaucracy for the criticism for not allowing the implementation of presidential orders. File
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Tesla CEO and DOGE head, Elon Musk, criticised the current state of U.S. spending, saying that an average citizen in the country “should be made” over the expenditure of the tax money.
In an interview with Fox News telecast on Tuesday (February 19, 2025), Mr. Musk said that U.S. President Donald Trump inherited a $2 trillion trade deficit. He further warned that “America will go bankrupt” if it fails to bring the deficit under control.
Criticising the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) spending, he added, “I think the average taxpaying American should be mad as hell because their tax money is being poorly spent.”
“…The overall goal is to try to get a trillion dollars out of the deficit. And if the deficit is not brought under control, America will go bankrupt. This is very important for people to understand. A country is no different from an individual, in that if an individual overspends, an individual can go bankrupt, and so can a country. And the out, the massive waste, fraud, and abuse that has been going on, which is leading to a $2 trillion-a-year deficit—that’s what the President was handed on January 20, 2025, a $2 trillion deficit,” he said in the interview.
Mr. Trump agreed, saying, “Yes, we inherited it.” He said that inflation is back, but he has nothing to do with it, as the Democrats ran the country for the last 4 years.
“These people have run the country. They spent money like nobody has ever spent. They were given $9 trillion to throw out the window — $9 trillion, and they spent it on the Green New Scam, I call it. It’s the greatest scam in the history of the country,” Mr. Trump said.
Stating that there are “hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fraud” in the system, Mr. Trump said Mr. Musk is doing an “amazing job” with the DOGE.
Mr. Trump spoke about the waste and fraud that Elon Musk and DOGE are finding and stressed that Mr. Musk is doing an “amazing job.”
“…They’re finding billions and it will be hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of fraud. I say waste and abuse, but fraud, waste, and abuse… He attracts a young, very smart type of person. I call them high-IQ individuals, and they are very high IQ. And when they go in to see the people and talk to these people—the people think they’re going to pull it over. They don’t. These guys are smart, and they love the country. You know, there’s a certain something. But he uses the word “care.” So, people have to care,” Mr. Trump told Fox News.
The DOGE head also hit back at the criticism faced by Democrats over DOGE cuts and blamed the bureaucracy for the criticism for not allowing the implementation of presidential orders.
In the interview, Mr. Musk said that they are trying to restore the will of the people through the President and if the will of the President, who is the representative of the people, is not implemented, it implies that they do not live in a democracy but bureaucracy.
He said that there’s a vast bureaucracy that is opposed to President Trump and the Cabinet and cited the voting in favour of former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, DC.
When asked about Democrats’ criticism over DOGE cuts, Mr. Musk said, “Why are they reacting like this…Well, I guess…if we’re the target, we’re doing something right. Like, they wouldn’t be complaining so much if we weren’t doing something useful, I think. All we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the President. And what we’re finding is there’s an unelected bureaucracy. Speaking of unelected, there’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the President and the Cabinet. And you look at, say, DC voting. It’s 92% Kamala. Okay, so we’re in 92% Kamala. That’s a lot,” he added.
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“I think about that number a lot. I’m like, 92%. That’s, basically, almost everyone. And so but if—but how can you—if the will of the president is not implemented and the President is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy; we live in a bureaucracy. And so, I think what we’re seeing here is the sort of thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people,” Musk further said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that he aimed to get good people on board and praised Mr. Musk, calling him an “amazing and caring person.” He mentioned an example: if a government agency signs a contract for three months and leaves that signed contract, they pay the contract for 10 years.
Elon Musk said that winning the election is an opportunity to fix the system and “restore the power of democracy.”
Published – February 19, 2025 03:17 pm IST
