Elon Musk reflects on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), its successes and failures, and his broader disillusionment with Washington politics. He criticizes wasteful spending, illegal immigration, and voter importation, warning of dire consequences for the country.
I think the story of Doge from your music perspective has never been told.
Do you think you were successful?
- We're a little a little bit successful.
We were some somewhat successful.
- Would you ever do Doge again?
- Um I mean, no.
I don't think so.
I think in instead of doing Doge, I would have basically music built, you know, worked on my companies essentially and not and the cars would they wouldn't have been running the cars.
- What's your biggest irrational fear?
- I try not to have irrational fears.
music - None.
If I find an irrational fear, I squelch it - if you had music to start from scratch today with only $1,000.
What would you do?
- Well, I did I did originally come to uh North America with like I don't know 2500 bucks Canadian, so I don't know, maybe two grand us.
At music this point, I have a lot of knowledge.
A lot of things have to go wrong for that to be the case.
It's like, am I just emerging from prison perhaps laughter with a stipend?
Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller podcast.
We are in Texas today joined by the one and only Elon Musk.
- Uh nice to see you again Katie.
- Nice to see you Elon.
So I want to take us back.
It's January 20th.
You are in the Roosevelt room, if you remember this, getting sworn in and they hand you a computer and a phone.
- Right.
Right.
- I want to go back to what happened next.
I think the story of Doge from your perspective has never been told.
What was your first thought on how Doge was going to proceed?
- Well, um I guess I couldn't believe I was there.
Uh, for the most part it's like um it's all seemed extremely surreal at the time.
you know, Doge was a madeup name um that had been made up, I don't know, two or three months before um and um based on internet suggestions and um I was going to call the Government Efficiency Commission and then and then um someone on the internet said, "No, it should be the Department of Government
Efficiency, Dog." I'm like, "That sounds great." Um, so we just kind of made up an apartment.
- Do you think you were successful?
- We're a little a little bit successful.
We were some somewhat successful.
Um, I mean, we we stopped a lot of snorts funding for um that that really just made no sense.
That was just entirely wasteful.
where like for example there was like probably 100 maybe $200 billion dollars worth of zombie payments per year uh which uh simply by um enforcing that there be a payment code and an explanation for the payment uh
that the payment would not go out.
So, we've made that change to the main treasury computer and bunch of other computers.
Um, it's like it seems like insanely obvious.
Um, but uh there are just call it I two or 3% of government payments that go out that uh really should not be going out.
Um, and it's actually quite hard to stop.
Um so um it's a it's a pretty rare individual that would um
ask the government to stop sending them money.
- Would you ever do Doge again?
- Um do you mean would I repeat history or or would I - two ways to think about it?
One is if you could go back and start from scratch like it's January 20th all again.
Would you go back and do it differently?
And knowing what you know now, do you think there's ever a place to restart you?
Not saying others in yourstead, you go back and restart doing Doge.
sighs - I mean, no, I don't think so.
Um, would I do I think I probably I don't know.
Um, - would you do Doge again knowing what you know now?
I mean the thing is like I think in instead of doing Doge I would have basically built you know worked on my companies essentially.
So and not and the cars would they wouldn't have been burning the cars.
Um - you gave up a lot to do.
Uh yeah, like if you if you if you stop money going uh to uh going for political corruption, they will they will lash out big time.
- Mhm.
- Um so they really want the money to keep flowing.
Um, so if you stop it from flowing, there's like a very strong reaction to stopping the money flowing.
- After you were in DC for a while, did you become disillusioned with how it operates?
- Well, I wouldn't say I was super illusioned to begin with.
Uh, it I mean, I guess it's just like you really want the least amount done by government possible.
The least amount I I guess maybe like the biggest thing is that I guess the biggest single thing is that the there are massive transfer payments going to um illegal immigrants um like massive essentially we're paying
people to come here from somewhere else um in vast numbers including flying them in.
So, like it's not like you need a border wall if you're flying them in.
Um, then fasttracking them to citizenship and um making them beholden to government payments um and uh and voting hard left.
That's that's essentially it's like voter importation.
If if you if you create a gigantic money magnet to um you say if anyone comes here from anywhere else, we're going to pay you t tons of money, give you lots of free stuff.
Um come come to America and get paid to do so.
Um like you're going to get a lot of people taking up on that offer.
Um and people say like this this is fake.
I'm like, uh, actually, well, let's look at,
um, you know, Elon Omar, who was literally was voted into power, voted into Congress by, uh, you know, large group of people from Somalia, who are in Minnesota, which is really far from Somalia, or Mandani, who was voted as to be to be mayor.
But if but - clears throat - by a majority of people who are not um born in America.
That's my understanding at least.
Um so um and then California say big time um situation.
So uh I don't we just don't want to turn into a um you know communist hell hole basically.