Donald Trump and White House can’t agree on whether Elon Musk is in charge of saving money | World | News
Donald Trump appeared to contradict his own administration during his nearly two-hour-long speech to Congress on Tuesday night.
The US president once again said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is “headed” by Elon Musk, despite the White House saying just last week that Amy Gleason is its acting administrator.
Mr Trump said: “I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard.
“He didn’t need this … Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Everybody here … appreciates it, I believe. They just don’t want to admit that.”
However, a recent court filing revealed that the tech billionaire was not the head of DOGE or the US DOGE Service Temporary Organisation.
It read: “Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr Musk is not the US DOGE Service Administrator.”
Mr Trump also boldly claimed in his speech that DOGE found “hundreds of billions of dollars” in fraud. He said: “[We’re] Taking back a lot of that money. We got it just in time. This is just the beginning.”
Contradicting this claim are the “receipts” DOGE posted online supposedly showing its successes, which the New York Times found to be full of errors and overestimated the amount of money saved.
The Trump administration also faced scrutiny over DOGE from US District Judge Theodore Chuang, who called Mr Musk’s role “highly suspicious”.
He questioned: “Who was the head of DOGE before Amy Gleason?” Justice Department attorney Joshua Gardner responded: “I can’t answer that. I don’t know.”
Mr Chuang, growing frustrated, hit back: “I mean, that seems like a knowable fact, doesn’t it?”
To which Mr Gardner replied: “I’m sure it’s knowable. I just don’t know it. I’m very conscious of being accurate with the court … I just can’t make it a representation.”
DOGE currently faces multiple lawsuits regarding its authority and Mr Musk’s role, some of which seek to prevent him from gutting US environmental agencies.