Elon Musk, the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, expressed irritation that DOGE took on the role of “whipping boy,” suggesting that it unfairly took the brunt of the blame for every controversial change made under the Trump administration.
For months, Musk took a verbal beating from Democrats over his work at DOGE, the bureaucracy-slashing task force he spearheaded that scrutinized government agencies for waste and fraud on behalf of President Donald Trump. Earlier this month, Musk said he would take a step back from DOGE to spend more time running his multibillion-dollar companies, Tesla, X, and SpaceX, which have suffered during his time in Washington.
During an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, Musk reflected on his time leading DOGE, saying the work to reform federal agencies was harder than he had anticipated.
“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he said. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”
Musk has been the subject of intense criticism during his time at DOGE. A flood of lawsuits endeavored to block him from probing agencies, accusing the task force of unlawfully scrutinizing agencies such as the Treasury Department for waste and abusing his power for personal gain. Critics said he put sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, at risk due to his work at the Treasury. Opponents also attacked him for making recommendations to agency heads about downsizing the number of government employees, a move they claimed cut vital jobs and characterized as insensitive to federal workers.
Musk expressed frustration with the pushback against DOGE during his interview.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
Democratic ire led to protests around the country that targeted lawmakers supportive of DOGE. Musk’s companies also took a hit, as anti-DOGE activists vandalized Tesla dealerships and products. As of late March, at least 80 violent attacks had been carried out, including incidents of arson and gunshots fired at dealerships, according to NBC News. The incidents are being investigated by the Justice Department and the FBI as possible acts of domestic terrorism.
Tesla’s brand took a hit amid the backlash.
By late April, Tesla’s stock had dropped 37% from the beginning of this year. The company’s first-quarter earnings report, released last month, revealed that its net income was down 71% year over year and its net profit margin was down 68%.
“Clearly the Musk DOGE distractions/brand issues have taken on a life of their own and that has created a black cloud over Tesla’s stock,” Daniel Ives, a leading financial security analyst for Wedbush, said in March.
Musk expressed dismay this week over the reputational hit his companies took.
“People were burning Teslas,” he said. “Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”
Musk previously acknowledged he had encountered “great difficulty” managing his businesses while heading DOGE.
“But there’s no turning back,” he said this spring. “I’m just trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we’re making good progress, actually. So our savings at this point exceed $4 billion a day.”
Musk and his allies have defended DOGE by pointing to data they say show evidence of sweeping redundancies, dysfunctionalities, and corruption within the federal bureaucracy. They say reform is needed to cut back on waste and save the country from going off a fiscal cliff.
“The government waste and fraud is so high that it is causing a $2 trillion annual deficit, so that’s 2,000 billion dollars of waste and fraud that’s happening,” Musk said during a March appearance on Fox News’s Hannity. “The cost of our debt has gotten so high that just the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget, and it was just growing out of control.”
Major federal agencies, such as the Treasury Department, handling trillions of dollars lacked basic functions such as payment coding that explain where funds were going, leading to $500 billion in fraud every year, according to DOGE. Updating the technology to track payments will save an estimated $100 billion annually, Musk argued in March.
The Department of Health and Human Services had 40 communications departments, 40 procurement departments, and 40 IT departments, none of whom were “talking to each other,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of DOGE’s findings at his agency during a Cabinet meeting. The National Institutes of Health had 700 different IT systems “that can’t speak to each other” and 27 chief information officers.
Musk also claimed that DOGE’s investigation of Social Security data found 20 million people who are “definitely dead are marked as alive” in the Social Security database and hundreds of millions of dollars of Small Business Administration loans that have been distributed to people under 12.
Multiple federal agencies have embraced DOGE’s recommendations.
The Treasury Department has implemented a payment verification system, which, according to DOGE, identified and rejected $334 million in improper payment requests after the system went live in late April. After DOGE audited the Defense Department, which has failed six consecutive audits, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon cut $580 million in “wasteful spending” due to “DOGE’s findings.”
In April, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer confirmed DOGE uncovered nearly $400 million in fraudulent unemployment payments claimed by thousands of people over 115, under 6, and with birthdates “over 15 years in the future.” On Wednesday, DOL officials told the Washington Examiner that the department cut another $400 million from the unemployment benefits system that it characterized as “riddled with waste.”
Musk is reducing the time he spends leading DOGE’s reforms to invest more hours building his companies, including SpaceX, which attempted rocket launches this week.
But he’s still keeping an eye on Washington politics.
On Sunday, Musk expressed concern over a “big, beautiful” budget bill backed by Trump, arguing that it allowed for excessive government spending that raises the country’s deficit.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT WHO IS IN CHARGE OF DOGE
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” he said.
“I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both, in my personal opinion,” Musk added.
