Unofficial DOGE head Elon Musk stood at President Trump’s first cabinet meeting and said he was merely ‘tech support’ as his agency rides herd on mass firings and his weekend missives threatened workers who don’t fire off an email with termination.
‘Mr. President, well, I actually just call myself the humble tech support here,’ Musk began, after Trump asked him to speak before any cabinet member.
‘We are actually tech support. It’s ironic but it’s true,’ Musk said, flashing his signature T-shirt while sporting his ‘dark MAGA’ hat inside the meting.
‘I’m taking a lot of flak. I’m getting a lot of death threats,’ said Musk, who has begun to feature in protests amid swelling influence with Trump after spending $277 backing his election.
Musk provided fresh details on his communications with Trump before he fired off his ‘what you did last week’ email to 4 million federal workers – and acknowledged occasional errors.
He described it as more of a bed check to ensure federal workers were alive and actually existed – although Trump issued his own firing threat by saying anyone who didn’t respond was ‘on the bubble.’
‘We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make mistakes, we’ll fix it very quickly. So for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally cancelled, very briefly, was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention, so we restore the Ebola prevention immediately,’ he said.
Elon Musk described himself as merely ‘tech support’ although Trump shut down any cabinet secretary who might think about criticizing hime
He indicated the cuts will continue at a brisk case. ‘But we do need to move quickly if we’re if we’re to achieve a trillion dollar deficit reduction in financial year 2026 it requires saving $4 billion per day every day from now through the end of September.
The initial Saturday email, with a midnight Monday deadline, said those who didn’t respond with an email on five things they did last week would be terminated.
Trump said the firing threat was real. Then on Monday the Office of Personnel Management the email was optional after multiple agencies told employees not to respond. Then Musk announced there would be a second email with a new deadline.
‘We think there are a number of people on the payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond,’ Musk said, a day after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a million people had responded.
Musk spoke first at Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his new term
Although he didn’t technically have a seat at the table, Musk spoke first at the meeting
Asked if the remainder would be terminated, Musk responded that last week ‘the president encouraged me, via Truth Social and also via phone call to be more aggressive. And I was like, okay, yes sir, Mr. President,’ he said, then sent the email.
‘Our goal is not to be capricious or unfair … We want to give people every opportunity to send an email,’ he continued.
Then Trump weighed in with his threat.
‘Those million people that haven’t responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble. You know, I wouldn’t say that we’re thrilled about it. They haven’t responded. Now, maybe they don’t exist. Maybe we’re paying people that don’t exist. Don’t forget, we just got here … People are on the bubble, as they say, maybe they’re going to be gone.’
Despite his powerful role, Musk is technically a ‘special government employee’ working for the government on a temporary basis. The White House only yesterday announced who is the official acting head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
When a reporter asked if any cabinet secretaries wanted to raise criticism of Musk’s directives, Trump interjected: ‘If you are we’ll throw ‘em out of here.’
