WASHINGTON: Elon Musk said the results of his massive cost-cutting drive on US government spending did not quite meet its original ambition after facing pushback, including from within the Trump administration. “It’s sort of, how much pain... are the cabinet and is Congress willing to take? Because it can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints,” he told an assembled group of US media on Wednesday. Musk is widely expected to reduce his role as the unofficial head of the administration’s cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency” to focus more on his troubled car company, Tesla.
The “DOGE” effort grabbed headlines from day one of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, with Musk-led teams entering government agencies to pore over spending and launching massive rounds of layoffs and other reforms. Musk acknowledged that so far, DOGE has cut $160 billion in federal spending — short of the original $2 trillion goal. Trump on Wednesday told Musk he could stay in his administration “as long as you want,” though acknowledging that he may want “to get back home to his cars.” — AFP
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