Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday called out Elon Musk's moves to cut government waste with government workforce firings "backward."
“The focus should have been on cutting the waste, fraud and abuse, and the people you could do over time,” Lutnick said in an interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen. “I thought he got that backward.”
Lutnick was critical of Musk's decisions, saying he should have focused on cutting back government spending, The Washington Post reports.
He also pointed to how the billionaire, the now second-wealthiest person on the planet, "got caught up in other people’s objectives.” He suggested that Musk may have pushed the efforts to slash federal employees ahead of President Donald Trump's Cabinet secretaries.
Instead of broad workforce reductions, Lutnick expects that identifying waste would be the government-cutting efforts and focus next. He cited that government employees are a "relatively small percentage of government spending," The Post reports.
Lutnick says he anticipates the Department of Government Efficiency will still be effective in the future, but finds it is “less effective than I would have hoped.”
Musk, who previously led DOGE in an effort to make good on President Donald Trump’s pledge to eradicate wasteful government spending.
This week, Rep. John Larson (D-CT) called on the Tesla CEO to be dragged in front of a House committee to testify on how Social Security data was compromised under his direction.
“We asked Elon Musk and DOGE to come before the [House] Ways and Means Committee, and they refused to come,” Larson said, speaking Wednesday on the House floor at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Musk's relationship with the Trump administration had soured after he criticized the "Big, Beautiful Bill" over X, which the South African-born billionaire said he later regretted. As a "special government employee," his role was limited to 130 days only.