Musk admits mistakes have been made in drive to make government cuts

Elon Musk has acknowledged his drive to make swift and extensive cuts to the US federal government has made mistakes, but insists they will be “fixed quickly”.

Mr Musk stood next to the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with his young son as President Donald Trump praised his work with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying they have found “shocking” evidence of wasteful spending.

The president signed an executive order to expand Mr Musk’s influence and continue downsizing the federal workforce.

Despite concerns that he is amassing unaccountable power with little transparency, Mr Musk described himself as an open book as he took questions from reporters for the first time since joining the Trump administration as a special government employee.

He claimed DOGE’s work was being shared on its website and on X, the social media platform he owns, although the DOGE website has no information and the postings on X often lack many details, including which programmes are being cut and where the organisation has access.

The White House has also been moving to limit independent oversight.

The inspector general for the US Agency for International Development was fired a day after warning it had become nearly impossible to monitor 8.2 billion dollars (£6.6 billion) in humanitarian funds after DOGE began dismantling the agency.

Mr Musk defended DOGE’s work as “common sense” and “not draconian or radical”.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what the people are going to get,” he said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

He acknowledged, in response to a question about false statements that the US was spending 50 million dollars (£40.2 million) on condoms for Gaza, that some of the claims he has made about government programmes have been wrong.

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” he said, acknowledging that DOGE could be making errors as well.

“We are moving fast, so we will make mistakes, but we’ll also fix the mistakes very quickly.”

He said there are some good people in the federal bureaucracy, but they need to be accountable, describing the workforce as an “unelected” fourth branch that had “more power than any elected representative”.

The executive order signed by Mr Trump said a DOGE representative will need to approve almost all new hiring, a dramatic consolidation of personnel management across the federal government.

“The agency shall not fill any vacancies for career appointments that the DOGE Team Lead assesses should not be filled, unless the Agency Head determines the positions should be filled,” the order said.

In addition, the Office of Management and Budget will require that agencies “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart” with exceptions when it comes to immigration, law enforcement and public safety.

Agency leaders were also directed to plan for “large-scale reductions in force”. Government functions not required by statute would be prioritised for elimination.

Mr Trump and Mr Musk are already pushing federal workers to resign in return for financial incentives, although their plan is on hold while a judge reviews its legality. The deferred resignation programme, commonly described as a buyout, would allow employees to quit and still get paid until September 30. Administration officials said more than 65,000 workers have taken the offer.

Hundreds of people gathered for a rally on Tuesday across the street from the US Capitol in support of federal workers.

Janet Connelly, a graphic designer with the Department of Energy, said she is fed up with emails from the Office of Personnel Management encouraging people to take the deferred resignation programme.

“From the get-go, I didn’t trust it,” she said. “It’s too easy to vilify us.”