Elon Musk has disclosed that his DOGE team has been receiving “a lot” of death threats as he played a prominent role at President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Watch:
Elon Musk delivers remarks at @POTUS‘ cabinet meeting:
“I actually just call myself humble tech support here because this is actually almost a literal description of the work @DOGE is doing… The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficit.” pic.twitter.com/La7kGOJtGV
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 26, 2025
The billionaire entrepreneur, dressed in a black “tech support” t-shirt under a sports jacket and his signature black “Make America Great Again” hat, stood in the White House Cabinet Room at Trump’s invitation. The president asked Musk to “say a few words” about his contributions to the administration.
In response, Musk referred to himself as “humble tech support” and explained that the term is “literal” because his DOGE group is actively working to “help fix the government’s computer systems.”
He elaborated, “Many systems are extremely old. They don’t communicate. They’re a lot of mistakes in the systems. The software doesn’t work, so we are actually tech support,” before emphasizing that his primary objective with DOGE is to reduce the federal deficit. He warned about the financial risks of rising debt, saying, “We spend a lot on the Defense Department, but we’re spending like, over a trillion dollars on interest. If this continues, the country will go become de facto bankrupt. It’s not an optional thing. It is an essential thing.”
Musk also revealed that he has been receiving significant pushback, stating, “I’m taking a lot of flack and getting a lot of death threats” due to his efforts.
Operating under a ‘Special Government Employee’ designation, Musk remains in control of multiple government contractors in which he has a stake, despite federal ethics regulations. He asserted that his initiatives could ultimately save a trillion dollars—15 percent of the federal budget—by cutting what he describes as ‘waste, fraud, and abuse.’
Recently, Musk has pushed federal employees to comply with a directive from the Office of Personnel Management, requiring them to submit five bullet points summarizing their weekly accomplishments. The directive faced resistance from multiple cabinet departments, with a deadline set for Monday, after which non-compliance could result in termination.
Without substantiating his claims, Musk alleged that the email was meant to verify whether federal payrolls include fake or deceased individuals. He clarified, “I think that email, perhaps, was first interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review.”
He further stated, “What we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond, and some people who are not real people.”
However, no evidence has been provided to support Musk’s assertion that deceased individuals are on the payroll, and neither he nor the White House has offered proof for the claim.
Despite some cabinet departments advising employees not to comply with Musk’s email request, he announced plans to send another round of queries this week. He maintained, “We’re going to send another email. Our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. It’s we want to give people every opportunity to send an email. And the email could simply be what I’m working on is too sensitive or classified to describe, like literally just that would be sufficient.”
Musk did acknowledge the possibility of errors in his aggressive cost-cutting strategy, and recently, DOGE removed five major savings claims from its website after multiple media reports highlighted serious inaccuracies.
