WASHINGTON – The government's efficiency department now has around 100 staff seeking cuts in federal spending, President Trump said Wednesday.
“I want to praise Elon… They started at 12. I call them 12 geniuses. They started at 12 and went to 20 and 25, but now they help them There are up to 100 people involved for this,” Trump said Wednesday in his oval office.
“Tomorrow I'm having a press conference. I'll read some of the names that have been given you hundreds of millions or billions of dollars — and you'll be saying that we're those things, those entities If you tell me you should give money to, I think you probably have to do, you're not very talented and you'll leave as a reporter.”
The internal functions of the Doge Initiative are shrouded in mystery, and the size of the Musk-led team was not widely known within the administrative department before Trump's remarks.
Like Musk, it is unclear how many of the 100 helpers are unpaid special government officials. Some of the initial recruitment has been reported to be in their early 20s or late teens, with many related to the mask business.
Musk, 53, was asked by a journalist alongside Trump in his oval office on Tuesday, saying he hopes to cut the federal deficit by about $2 trillion.
“With the president's support, the budget deficit can be reduced by half from half a trillion dollars to one person,” said SpaceX and Tesla CEOs.
“If we can cut our fiscal deficit by $1 trillion between now and next year, we will not have inflation,” Musk said.
“And if the government doesn't borrow much, that means interest costs will be reduced. So everyone's mortgage, car payments, credit card bills, any – student debt, monthly payments It drops. It's a great scenario for the average American.”
Trump praised Doge's decision on Wednesday to cancel $80 million in FEMA funds for housing immigrants in bank accounts in New York City. Joe Biden.
Local officials who protested said they were assigned by the council for that purpose, but they were weighing legal options.
The Mask initiative effectively shut down USAID last week, launching a process that fires most of the 10,000 employees of a $50 billion foreign aid agency per year, and discards most of its grants to external organizations. did.
Doge, in partnership with the White House Office of Management and Budget, began the process of closing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency office this week and demolishing 1,700 agents.
CFPB's operations are extraordinarily funded by the Federal Reserve, and Doge believes it could hand over approximately $712 million in bureau funds to the Treasury.
Monday's cost-cutting initiative cancelled a nearly $900 million contract in a contract with the Education Science Institute, the Education Department.
The education division, which Trump announced plans to abolish, has an annual budget of around $268 billion.
Other early goals include in tens of millions of dollars news outlet subscriptions. This includes Politico's $8 million, where industry and policy newsletters are widely used by federal agencies.
Doge has won 62 contracts worth $182 million with the Department of Health and Human Services. This mentions the X owned by Musk, including a $168,000 contract for an exhibition that praises Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Museum of Health.
Trump said Wednesday that masks will make more cuts. He said he intends to lead the fiscal crusades for about four months – the Democrats and the enemy's arrangement have filed lawsuits attempting to reverse his actions.
“There are so many deals, thousands, thousands, and if no one cares, you'll lose control,” Trump said.
“That's what happened and we caught it now. What we were thinking is billions and billions of dollars, but that's just a small part of the real number because people. Because it left for a huge amount of money.”
