Investing.com -- Under-fire Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk provided a behind-the-scenes look at DOGE in a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday.
First, Musk addressed today’s outage of his X social media platform and said they believe it was caused by IP addresses originating in Ukraine.
Next, Musk addressed the Telsa protests and the falling stock price. He said, "It is tough sledding, but I think we are doing the right thing here."
Musk said there is a massive amount of waste in the government.
"There’s been a tremendous amount of waste and fraud in the government... there was a report issued by the Government Accountability Office last year, during the Biden administration, which estimated the federal government fraud to be half a trillion dollars... all we’re trying to do is get that number down to a much smaller figure, save money for the American taxpayer."
On how big his DOGE team is, Musk said it is about 100 people now and will get to 200 people. He said the team is comprised of people in the software, finance, and technology fields.
On how they decided to focus DOGE energies, Musk said, "We follow the money."
"With USAID, we saw money being sent to NGOs," Musk said, calling it a ’fraud loop hole’. "Tens of billions were sent to NGO that are essential scams," he added.
Musk also criticized how the government is set up, calling it more of a bureaucracy than a democracy.
"They try their best to thwart presidential policy," Musk said about the bureaucracy. "If Trump can’t implement his policies, we have a bureaucracy," he said. Further, he said the bureaucracy is overwhelmingly Democrat.
Musk then added that the wake-up call for him to get involved was that interest payments on the national debt exceeded the national security budget.
"If we didn’t do something about this, there wouldn’t be anything left... we would just be servicing debt," he said. "I don’t want to see America go bankrupt."
Regarding a question on how he is running his other businesses, Musk said, "with great difficulty," looking dejected.
Overall, Musk said he thinks DOGE will get to $1 trillion in savings "unless we are stopped" and thinks he will go another year.
On the most significant waste yet to tackle in the government, Musk pointed to "entitlements." He thinks cuts on waste for entitlements could save $500-700 billion a year. He said it is the mechanism that Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters. "This is why Democrats are so angry," he added.
Musk ended the interview by answering a question about the stranded astronauts in space, saying, "We are going to get them back in a few weeks."