President Trump made a rare appearance with Elon Musk, his most powerful adviser, in the Oval Office on Tuesday before signing an executive order to continue downsizing the federal workforce. The AP reviewed a White House fact sheet on the order, which is intended to advance Musk's work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency. The order requires federal agencies to coordinate with DOGE, the Guardian reports.
Musk said there are some good people in the federal bureaucracy but they need to be accountable and called it an "unelected" fourth branch. "The people voted for major government reform and that's what the people are going to get," he said. "That's what democracy is all about." It was Musk's first time taking questions from reporters since he joined the Trump administration as a special government employee with sprawling influence over federal agencies.
Despite concerns that he's amassing unaccountable power with little transparency, Musk described himself as an open book. He joked that the scrutiny was like a "daily proctology exam." The White House fact sheet said that "agencies will undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force and determine which agency components (or agencies themselves) may be eliminated or combined because their functions aren't required by law." It also said that agencies should "hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service." There are plans for exceptions when it comes to immigration, law enforcement, and public safety.
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