President Trump on Monday rejected a question about Elon Musk's official title after the White House said the tech billionaire is not part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Eron is a patriot to me. So you can call him an employee, you can call him a consultant, you can call him anything you want. But he's a patriot and I meant I took something like that,” Trump told reporters, referring to Musk's cost-cutting efforts.
Musk is an employee of the “White House Office” and serves as a senior adviser to the president, according to a court filing from Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Administration. Fisher said Musk “does not have the actual or formal authority to make government decisions themselves.”
The president also reiterated his confidence in the mask and the doge team.
“I asked Elon, 'Who are these doge people?” he said they are very wonderful computer people and they love the country. That's easy,” Trump said.
Trump said Musk would remove himself from the profit dispute situation when asked about Doge and SpaceX employees working for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense, but the federal government said he would remove himself from the situation. I have a contract with the company.
“I'm just listening to it. If there's one… obviously there's no conflict of interest. He's done a great job,” Trump said. “I told Elon any conflict you have nothing to do with it. So perhaps anything that even space has anything to do with it, I won't let Elon join it.”
Musk's SpaceX officials visited the FAA this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced weeks after the fatal crash between a passenger and a military plane near Reagan Washington National Airport.
While speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Trump looked at papers to outline cost-cutting efforts so far, claiming that over 4 million people between the ages of 100 and 109 have undergone Social Security checks. did.
Trump went on to say many clearly dead people are still undergoing Social Security checks. Other White House officials have been discussing recently.
He said more than 1 million people have received checks between the ages of 150 and 159, and more than 800 people aged 200 to 210 have received checks. Trump said the 360-year-old was being checked.
“We have a very corrupt country, and that's sad, but we understand that,” added Trump, who didn't provide documents to back up our Social Security numbers at a press conference on Tuesday. I did.
Musk and White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt also said that a huge number of people have been fraudulently acquiring Social Security benefits these days.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Social Security Agency's deputy leader resigned from accessing recipient data due to her role over requests from DOGE and refused to provide it to staff.
