Elon Musk on Wednesday backtracked on his goal to cut $2 trillion from the U.S. budget in his role as the co-head of DOGE, Donald Trump’s proposed new advisory body which aims to slash waste and regulations to lower taxes.
Speaking to political strategist Mark Penn in an interview on X, the Tesla billionaire said he now thinks he only has a “good shot” at saving half that amount.
That’s a big downgrade from the “at least $2 trillion” Musk previously said he’d be able to save while speaking at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in October.
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“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion. I think that’s the best-case outcome,” Musk said in the X interview. “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one [trillion dollars of cuts].”
Musk, whose personal net worth is estimated to be close to half-a-trillion dollars, did not name any specific areas of spending that he would cut, other than to say the government’s spending is “a very target-rich environment for saving money.”
“It’s like being in a room full of targets. You could close your eyes, and you can’t miss,” he said, laughing.
Musk’s backtracking will come as no surprise to some Republicans who warned that his original goal was implausible.
“It would be very difficult to do that [$2 trillion cut] without cutting national security,” said Steve Womack (R-AR), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, speaking to CNBC in December.
The federal government’s total discretionary spending, meaning the amount that Congress decides each year, is only $1.7 trillion, and almost half of that is allocated to defense.
Experts say that to get close to the $2 trillion amount, Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is co-leading the DOGE budget-slashing effort, would have to look at mandatory spending programs like Medicaid.
Musk has previously said the cuts could cause “hardship” for some.
