President Donald Trump’s righthand man, “special government employee” Elon Musk, played the sympathy card with skeptical officials Wednesday as he dominated the first Cabinet meeting of the president’s second term.
“Well, I should just call myself a humble tech support here,” said the world’s richest man to tepid laughter. Musk wore his usual Dark MAGA trucker’s cap and a black “tech support” t-shirt under a sports jacket.
His shadow presidency is hard and dangerous work, he told the assembled members of Trump’s Cabinet, which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who sat on either side of the president.
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“We spend a lot on the Defense Department, but we’re spending like, over a trillion dollars on interest. If this continues, the country will go, become de facto bankrupt,” Musk said, calling his job—whatever exactly that is—”an essential thing.”
Musk acted every bit in charge of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency task force, even though the administration, confusingly, said last week that he isn’t.
“That’s the reason I’m here and taking a lot of flak and getting a lot of death threats by the way,” Musk told the assembled Cabinet officials, who hold much higher ranks in the U.S. government than Musk—including Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who are fourth through seventh, respectively, in the line of succession to the presidency.
Death threats aside, Musk admitted to making life-threatening errors in his temporary job decimating the federal workforce and programs.
“We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect,” Musk said, admitting that among them was “we accidentally canceled very briefly was ebola prevention.” He said the program was restored “immediately” and “there was no interruption.”
Democratic Rep. Don Byer later pointed out that anyone else would have been fired, but that Musk “didn’t earn his job, he bought it.”
Most Cabinet officials at Wednesday’s meeting had instructed their employees to ignore Musk’s ultimatum email to list five things they accomplished last week or face termination. But Musk doubled down at the Cabinet meeting he lorded over, insisting, “We’re going to send another email. Our goal is not to be capricious or unfair.”
Trump signaled his approval.
“For the most part I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled,” Trump said, answering a reporter’s question about whether his Cabinet officials are pleased with Musk’s role in firing thousands of federal workers and threatening the rest with termination. “Is anyone unhappy with Elon? If you are, we’ll throw ‘em out of here.”
Trump said as for many federal employees who did not reply to Musk’s “what did you do last week” email, “We’re trying to figure out—do they exist? Who are they? It’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired.”
Asked by a reporter if every single official seated at the conference table in the Cabinet Room in the West Wing of the White House was bound to follow the president’s orders, Trump responded, “Oh yes they’ll follow the rules. No exceptions.”
“Of course no exceptions,” Trump told reporters. “You know that.”
