Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Thursday that his team at President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency isn’t moving fast enough in his efforts to dismantle the federal government.
The assessment from the DOGE head came during a sit-down interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, where he first discussed the cost-cutting agency’s work and goals alongside DOGE staffers. But when members of his team left the room, Musk opened up in response to a viewer’s question, who asked if he and his team are “happy with the speed at which they’re making changes.”
“Well, I think, in the context of the government, we’re moving like lightning,” Musk said Thursday. “In the context of what I’m used to moving, it’s slower than I’d like. So what seems like incredibly fast action…it’s slower than I’d like, to be quite frank.”
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Musk added that he’s hoping a fix to a “thorny problem” would “greatly improve the efficiency of the government system.”
“It’s really kind of like painful homework, frankly, is reconciling all the government databases to eliminate the waste and fraud,” Musk told Baier. “These databases don’t talk to each other, and that’s the biggest vulnerability for fraud is the fact that these databases don’t talk to each other.”
He added: “It’s frankly painful homework, but it has to be done and will.”