Musk complained in a separate interview with the Washington Post that DOGE, which operated out of the White House with a staff of young technicians, had become a lightning rod for criticism.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk told the newspaper at the Starbase launch site in Texas ahead of SpaceX’s latest launch on Tuesday.
“Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
Musk blamed entrenched US bureaucracy for DOGE’s failure to achieve all of its goals, although reports say his domineering style and lack of familiarity with the currents of Washington politics were also major factors.
“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised,” he said. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
Musk has previously admitted that he did not achieve all his goals with DOGE even though tens of thousands of people were removed from government payrolls and several departments were gutted or shut down.
Trump and DOGE have managed to cut nearly 12 per cent, or 260,000, of the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce largely through threats of firings, buyouts and early retirement offers, a Reuters review of agency departures found.
