When asked what he thinks of the recent series of attacks on Tesla and the X platform, Musk said that he “needs to see more of the bright side of life”.
Author: Zhu Xueying
Source: Wall Street News
With Tesla’s 15% plunge overnight, Musk, who is leading DOGE to stir things up in Washington, continues to stand at the center of the storm. On Monday, he spoke to Fox Business about Tesla, the government issues identified by DOGE, and what to focus on.
Musk said the U.S. government’s biggest spending is welfare spending, which is a key cut-back program that amounts to about $500 billion to $670 billion a year. However, this view is at odds with US President Donald Trump’s position. During last year’s campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly promised not to cut Social Security or Medicare, which was popular with voters. In his interview last Sunday, he also stressed:
I wouldn’t touch Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid… We’re going to get rid of the fraud, and everybody expects us to do that, so you’re going to make the system better.
In addition, when asked by the host how to view the recent series of attacks on Tesla and the X platform, Musk said that “we should look at the bright side of life”. He also stressed that it is “very difficult” to handle various businesses and manage many businesses at the same time.
The highlights of the interview are as follows:
- One of the largest U.S. government expenditures is welfare spending, a key cut-off program that amounts to about $500 billion to $670 billion a year. It’s also a way for the Democratic Party to attract and retain illegal immigrants. If this giant “money magnet” is turned off, illegal immigrants will leave, and they will lose their voters.
- There is huge waste and fraud within the Biden administration, estimated to be as high as $500 billion. In addition, 20 million people who should have died are still marked as “alive,” and hundreds of millions of dollars in Small Business Administration (SBA) loans have been granted to children aged 11 and under.
- Today, DOGE is saving $4 billion a day, ultimately achieving its goal of $1 trillion in savings without external deterrence.
- Government-funded “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) are a huge corruption loophole, and the U.S. government provides billions of dollars to these NGOs.
- DOGE’s financial review is transparent, line-by-line, and unconcealed.
- Musk may also need another year in Washington to deal with DOGE matters.
- U.S. astronauts stranded in space will be picked up in a few weeks.
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The full text of the interview is an AI translation
Moderator: Here’s a special interview, and we welcome Mr. Elon Musk, who of course is a well-known Trump adviser, CEO of Tesla, chairman of SpaceX, and chairman of Company X. Thank you for your time, we appreciate it.
Elon Musk: Thanks for having me.
Moderator: I think from that point on, everybody is attacking your position. What exactly do you do in government? Today X was hit by a cyber attack that brought down the system, and it is said that the attack may have come from overseas. It’s big news, can you talk about that?
Musk: Well, we’re not sure exactly what’s going on yet, but there was a massive cyberattack that was designed to take down X’s system, and the source of the IP address seems to be in the Ukrainian region.
Moderator: Oh, so that’s your suspicion… Website, is it still online? Has it been recovered?
Musk: Yes, it’s been restored.
Moderator: Okay, that’s good. I just reviewed the recent situation: near Boston, someone set fire to several Tesla charging stations. In Oregon, a Tesla dealership was shot. And in the heart of New York City, there were huge protest marches against Tesla showrooms. Your stock has fallen sharply and you’ve been criticized left and right, so why are you still doing these things?
Elon Musk: Hmm… Look at the bright side of life.
Moderator: Yes. Other than that, what motivates you every day? What motivated you to do this? This is not an easy task.
Elon Musk: yes, it’s tough, indeed. But I think we’re doing the right thing. There is a great deal of waste and fraud within the government. When you work in the government, you see a lot of this. If you look at the Inspector General’s report and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation, there is a huge amount of waste and fraud within the government. In fact, the GAO released a report during the Biden administration – last June – estimating the amount of fraud in the federal government to be as high as $500 billion. To be clear, this is not a Trump administration’s problem, it’s a Biden administration’s problem.
So we’re trying to bring that number down to save American taxpayers money and stop ridiculous spending that almost no taxpayer would agree to. For example, sex reassignment animal surgery – why is U.S. tax money spent on these things? The president cited a lot of ridiculous spending, such as the 20 million people in the Social Security database who should have died still being marked as “alive,” the hundreds of millions of dollars in Small Business Administration (SBA) loans being given to children aged 11 and under, and how business-minded those 8-year-olds are!
Moderator: yes, or a “very healthy” 150-year-old?
Musk: Yes, as the president said, we have a large number of 160-year-olds who are labeled “alive” and who himself laments that the health of the country is so good.
Moderator: So, can you explain how you do that? How big is your team? Where do you primarily recruit team members? And, how did you decide to investigate agencies like the Treasury Department, Social Security, or USAID? Please tell the public about it.
Elon Musk: Basically, we just follow the flow of money. We follow the president’s executive order and analyze fiscal flows. We focus on USAID because they continue to provide foreign aid in complete defiance of the president’s executive order – much of what we believe is corruption.
We found that the money was channelled in large quantities to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). By the way, I think one of the biggest frauds in the world is government-funded “non-governmental” organizations. This creates a huge corruption loophole where the government can fund NGOs but there is no regulation at all for these NGOs. Our estimate is that the government is giving billions of dollars to these NGOs, which are basically scams. And we’re trying to stop that.
Moderator: I don’t want to interrupt you, but Secretary Rubio just tweeted that he has accepted more than 80 percent of the recommendations to close some USAID programs. Your review and analysis are clearly accurate.
Elon Musk: Yes. So when people criticize the work of the “DOGE” team, we ask: which part of the criticism exactly? We made all of our actions public, posting them on the Dorse.gov website and on the DOGE team’s X account. We publish the evidence directly – “this is the measure we have taken”, so when someone criticizes, we ask, “Which one are you specifically against?” Which spending cut displeased you?" As a rule, they simply can’t say it.
Moderator: So it’s a transparent, line-by-line fiscal review.
Elon Musk: Line by line, open without concealment.
Moderator: It’s really remarkable.
Elon Musk: Right. In the case of the Ministry of Finance, for example, the two main recommendations we made have now been implemented:
All Treasury payments, particularly its core payments system, the PAM, which processes $5 trillion annually, or nearly $1 billion per hour, must be marked with a congressional appropriation code and provide detailed payment instructions.
By doing so, we estimate that we could save $100 billion per year.
Moderator: Let me confirm that your goal is not to change policy, but to audit the fiscal mechanism to ensure that money flows from point A to point B without being drained or misappropriated. In other words, you’re not changing the law, you’re doing the profit and loss audit that any business does.
Elon Musk: Yes. What we offer is accountability and expertise. The government is rife with fraud, such as misusing Social Security numbers to scam out of benefits, unemployment benefits, small business loans, health benefits, etc. About 10% of federal spending is likely to be fraudulent, totaling $500 billion.
Moderator: That’s an astronomical amount. Do you work with the heads of various agencies as well as with cabinet ministers? I saw Howard Lutnick mentioned on TV yesterday that you are working closely with them. Does that make sense?
Elon Musk: We do consult with cabinet ministers and heads of agencies, and we try to play the role of technical support to help departments take better control of the situation. In fact, there is a vast bureaucracy throughout the federal apparatus, and at the top of this system there is only a thin layer of politically appointed officials. It is often the bureaucracy that really holds the control, and they often ignore the role of political appointees.
Moderator: Why is this so? I worked in the Reagan administration many years ago and served in Trump’s first term. You see, this bureaucracy is permanent, it’s liberal, and it doesn’t necessarily carry out or enforce the president’s policies.
Elon Musk: Exactly. They always do their best to thwart the policies of the president, who is an elected representative of the people. If the president fails to implement policies that reflect the will of the people, it is not true democracy, but bureaucracy. This is the bureaucratic rule that we are trying to break down and restore the sovereignty of the people. The existing bureaucracy is overwhelmingly biased in favor of the Democrats, with Washington, D.C., for example, having 92.5 percent of the vote cast for Harris. So, it’s basically a Democratic-dominated situation.
Moderator: Which target sector would you choose next?
Elon Musk: We’re trying to work across all departments, not just one at a time. Moderator: Are you already involved in all of these departments? Elon Musk: Basically. Our goal is to improve the operational efficiency of the entire government.
Moderator: So, how big is your team?
Elon Musk: It’s just over 100 at the moment, and it’s expected to expand to 200.
Moderator: Where do you recruit from?
Elon Musk: Mainly software engineers, information security experts, and financial experts.
Frankly, I can’t believe I’m doing this, it’s kind of weird. But I think, yes, we have a huge federal budget deficit, a real trillion-dollar deficit, and it’s growing. Our interest payments have already exceeded the budget of the Ministry of Defense. I think the real wake-up call for me was when I saw that the interest payments on the national debt exceeded the budget of the Ministry of Defense. And the situation will only get worse over time, which means that if we don’t take action, we won’t end up with the money to do anything, we’ll just keep paying our debts.
Moderator: You know how to balance sheet, you have some business experience, right? I’m kidding, but you do understand these things.
Elon Musk: yes, I do. I really don’t want the U.S. to go bankrupt, so …
Moderator: Is this a call to action? You feel it, don’t you? Have you given up on something else? How do you manage your other businesses?
Elon Musk: Very difficult.
Moderator: But you’re saying there’s no turning back?
Elon Musk: I just want to make the government run more efficiently and eliminate waste and fraud. And we’ve actually made a lot of progress so far. We’re already saving more than $4 billion a day. That’s a pretty impressive number.
Moderator: Do you think you’ll end up saving $1 trillion?
Musk: Unless someone stops us, we’re going to achieve $1 trillion in savings.
Moderator: These results can translate into substantial savings. We previously spoke to the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) who spoke in detail about precise delegation and execution. I’m sure you’ve said it before, this is an audit that won’t be put on hold, but one that will really lead to real savings and lower the baseline of spending.
Elon Musk: Yes, there have been a lot of good audit reports in the past, such as those done by the Office of the Inspector General (IG) and the Office of Government Accountability (GAO). But the problem is that these reports are never really implemented, nothing has changed. Did you know that the GAO discovered a few years ago that there were 17 million records of deceased people in the Social Security database, and now that number has become 20 million, but no one has done anything about it? I think we can look at this from the perspective of “complaint reduction optimization”. Basically, if the government sends out the money, either wastefully or fraudulently, no one will complain because the person receiving the money will not complain. But if they don’t receive the money, they complain, and the most intense complaints are often those who cheat out the money.
Moderator: Are you working on this?
Elon Musk: yes, so the goal is clear, which is not to let the United States go bankrupt because of waste and fraud. That’s my mission, and we’re making good progress.
Interviewer: Will you do it for another year?
Elon Musk: yes, I think it will.
Moderator: Will you submit your final report in the middle of next year?
Elon Musk: We’re more inclined to take direct action rather than write reports. Like I said, the report doesn’t have any real meaning, the key is to actually take action.
Yes. So in terms of support and welfare spending, you know, that’s where most of the federal spending comes from. That’s the biggest one, and that’s what we’re going to eliminate, which is about $500 billion to $670 billion a year. It’s also a way for the Democrats to attract and retain illegal immigrants by paying them money, getting them here, and then turning them into voters. So that’s why the Democrats are so unhappy with this situation because they’re losing voters. If this huge “money magnet” is turned off, illegal immigrants will leave, and they will lose voters.
Moderator: The President supports you, he reiterated it yesterday.
Elon Musk: Thanks, that’s so important. We could not have made any progress without the support of the President. But you’ll see that the biggest opposition is coming from the Democrats, who don’t want this waste and fraud to be stopped, because that’s what they’re trying to do to attract illegal immigrants and get them to stay.
You can even see some crazy things, like FEMA funding. FEMA was supposed to bail out Americans in distress, but instead they used some of the money to pay for illegal immigrants in New York to stay in luxury hotels. Moreover, this happened even after the president was elected and signed an executive order calling it off. So we made sure that the funding was really cut off. This is clearly infuriating, and the money of American taxpayers is being used to pay for luxury hotels for illegal immigrants. But you have to think, why is this happening? The reason is that the Democrats are trying to “import” voters.
And that’s why voter IDs aren’t required in California and New York, and aren’t even allowed to show photo IDs, isn’t it crazy?
Moderator: It’s insane. Yes, as a New Yorker, I feel that way too.
Musk: Crazy.
Moderator: This is a complete violation of the Constitution and the principles behind it.
Yes, the producers of the show asked me to end the interview. But I really don’t want to end because it’s so much fun. Can I ask you a question that has nothing to do with DOGE? Just 20 seconds. Will you be able to save those astronauts?
Musk: yes, we’ll bring them back in a couple of weeks.
Moderator: It’s not getting enough attention at all. Are you really going to bring them back?
Musk: yes, we’ll bring them back.
Moderator: May God bless. Thank you for everything, Elon Musk, we really appreciate it.
Elon Musk: Thank you and take care.
