If he could do it all over again, Elon Musk says he wouldn’t have participated in DOGE.
Speaking on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, a new office created at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, was only “somewhat successful” at saving taxpayer money, and Musk believes he could have better spent his time focused on his various business ventures.
“I guess I couldn’t believe I was there for the most part. It’s like — it all seemed extremely surreal at the time,” Musk told Miller, who is married to Stephen Miller, who currently serves as White House deputy chief of staff.
The name DOGE itself, Musk said, was made up “based on internet suggestions,” and, while he still agrees that it’s a worthwhile cause to try to slow government spending, he doesn’t see his efforts as particularly effective during the months he worked alongside the Trump administration.
“We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful,” Musk said. “I mean, we stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was just entirely wasteful. For example, there was probably $100, maybe $200 billion worth of zombie payments per year, which simply by enforcing that there be a payment code and an explanation for the payment, the payment would not go out.”
While Musk had initially projected DOGE would save an estimated $2 trillion, he later revised his estimate to project nearly $150 billion in spending cuts for the 2026 fiscal year before he stepped back from the office in April, Business Insider has previously reported.
While it is unclear exactly how much the office ultimately saved before it quietly disbanded in July, an August analysis by Politico verified $1.4 billion in confirmed contract cancellations and a decrease in federal spending.
When asked directly by Miller whether he’d participate in the DOGE office if he could repeat history, Musk thought for just a moment before sighing and saying he would not.
“No, I don’t think so. Would I do it? I think I probably — I don’t know,” Musk said. “I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically built, you know, worked on my companies, essentially, and the cars — they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”
Musk faced intense public backlash and was the subject of numerous protests, including vandalism against Tesla, as a result of his work with the Trump administration. Musk described the backlash as “a very strong reaction” to his attempt to stop “political corruption.”
The fallout was also concerning to Tesla investors, some of whom worried Musk was spending too much time at the White House and not enough on the electric-vehicle maker.
“We think shareholders have legitimate concerns about Elon Musk being spread too thin, and it’s become clear he’s now spending more time on DOGE than anything else,” Garrett Nelson, a senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, told Business Insider in March.
Tesla’s stock plummeted in the first half of the year but began to rally after Musk announced he’d be leaving DOGE and officially stepped away in May. As of market close Tuesday, Tesla’s stock was up over 17% this year.
Musk’s relationship with Trump soured in June after Musk criticized the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The pair publicly feuded for months, but Business Insider reported in November that the tension between the two had eased recently, and Musk was invited to Trump’s White House dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
