Elon Musk now has a new, lower target number for DOGE’s budget cuts

Elon Musk walked back his previous claim that he could cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget, saying Wednesday that half that amount would be “an epic outcome.”

Elon Musk has walked back his previous claim that he could cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget, saying Wednesday that half that amount would be “an epic outcome.” Musk, who has been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, called the $2 trillion target “the best-case outcome.” “If we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one,” Musk said in an interview streamed Wednesday evening on X, which he owns. “And if we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and kind of free up the economy to have additional growth — such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply — then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome.” There’s no shortage of money-saving targets in the federal government, Musk said, without offering any specifics. “It’s very, very hard for people to care about spending someone else’s money,” he said.“Actually, I know people in the government who do care about, just as a matter of principle, spending money effectively. And they try to do so, and they can’t. The system prevents them from doing so.” Musk, the world’s richest person, is looking to downsize the federal budget and operations by slashing spending, curbing regulations and cutting the workforce. However, budget experts have scoffed at his pronouncements, saying that eliminating $2 trillion from a roughly $6.8 trillion budget is unrealistic.