By Reagan Reese, Daily Caller News Foundation | March 06, 2025
President Donald Trump convened his cabinet on Thursday to discuss the Department of Government Efficiency being run by Elon Musk and how it needs to start working with the federal agencies, he announced via a TruthSocial post.
Since taking office, Musk’s DOGE has dominated the headlines as he has gone from agency to agency with his team auditing department spending and employee efficiency. In late February, Musk instructed federal employees to provide him a list of five things they accomplished during the last week, but some department and agency heads instructed their staff to ignore the emails. Trump told his cabinet and Musk that they need to work on “cost cutting measures and staffing,” according to his Truth Social post.
“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,” Trump wrote. “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.”
Trump told his cabinet that Musk can make recommendations for departments but does not have the power to fire people or make unilateral decisions on policy or personnel, two administration officials told Politico.
“We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one. It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people,” Trump said, adding that these meetings would be happening every two weeks and Musk’s relationships with the secretaries is “extraordinary.”
“They all want to get to the exact same place, which is, simply, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump continued.
According to a February Harvard CAPS / Harris poll, 72% of voters are supportive of having a government agency focused on efficiency initiatives. Even more voters, 77%, say “a full examination of all government expenditures is necessary” and 70% believe that government expenditures are filled with “waste, fraud and inefficiency,” the poll shows.
The survey was conducted among 2,443 registered voters within the United States between Feb. 19-20. The respondents were recruited through an opt-in, web-panel recruitment sampling and the margin of error is 2 points.
Trump did voice his happiness with DOGE and Musk during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, shouting out the leader who was sitting in the chamber.
“Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified, $22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens. $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma. $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is,” Trump said, continuing down the list.
Regan Reese is a white house correspondent at the Daily Caller News Foundation
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