President Donald Trump placed guardrails on Elon Musk's slapdash crusade against federal spending, clarifying to his administration that the DOGE head doesn't have the authority to fire staff.
Trump convened Cabinet leaders on Thursday to spell out the official parameters of the billionaire’s cost-cutting role, per Politico. Trump reportedly clarified that Musk’s team had the power to make policy and staffing recommendations, not final employment decisions. Two Trump administration officials told the outlet Musk was present at the cabinet meeting.
Cabinet secretaries had previously been forced to navigate directives from Musk with little guidance from Trump. Sources told Politico that Musk agreed with Trump’s move to rein in his vaguely defined government oversight group and accepted that DOGE had made some mistakes.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump painted the meeting as a success and promised regular meetings to keep the Cabinet abreast of DOGE's work.
"DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and Staffing," he wrote. "As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the 'scalpel' rather than the 'hatchet.' The combination of them, Elon, DOGE, and other great people will be able to do things at a historic level."
The clarification from the Trump administration comes roughly two weeks after a message from the Office of Personnel Management, seeming at Musk's behest, arrived in the inboxes of millions of federal workers. That email demanded they summarize their recent accomplishments or face termination.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk said on X, though Trump appointees at the FBI, Department of State and other agencies instructed employees not to respond to the email.
Musk’s wide mandate to fire workers with little department consultation up to this point has reportedly made Trump allies uneasy. Congressional Republicans demanded earlier this week that Musk scale back or seek input on his onslaught against the federal government, as constituents flood GOP town halls with tough questions on DOGE.
Shares