Elon Musk wants to double the number of people working for the Department of Government Efficiency from 100 employees to 200 despite the pseudo-agency’s negative effect on the rest of his businesses.
“We’re a little over 100 at this point. Get to 200,” Musk told Fox Business Channel’s Larry Kudlow Monday.
“Basically, it’s software people, information security, software people, and finance, you know, it’s basically, yeah, finance and technology,” Musk said about the DOGE employee backgrounds.
As the CEO of X, Tesla, and Space X, Musk has relied on his business acumen to trim the federal workforce and curb government spending through DOGE. But it has come at a significant financial cost.
“How are you running your other businesses?” Kudlow inquired during his eponymous show.
“With great difficulty,” Musk shot back.
Forbes’s billionaire tracking tool shows that Musk, with a net worth of $319.6 billion, has lost $22.8 billion since the stock market closed on Friday.
He is still, however, the world’s richest person.
Monday morning, X users were unable to access the social media website, which Musk later said was a cyberattack.
“We’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” he said.
Tesla stock plummeted 15% Monday, marking its worst market performance since September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Musk joined the Trump administration to help with DOGE, Tesla’s stock has fallen every week.
Tesla dealerships have been vandalized with arson or even bullets in a display of the brand suffering due to Musk’s political work.
“They’re setting fire to various Tesla charging stations near Boston. Shots were fired at a Tesla dealership in Oregon, various nonviolent —,” Kudlow said before Musk interrupted him.
“Shots fired. Not a metaphor,” said Musk before attempting to appear positive. “Always look on the bright side of life.”
“It is tough sledding. But I think we’re doing the right thing here,” he added.
Kudlow also asked if Musk would agree to lead DOGE for another year, to which the tech billionaire replied, “Yeah, I think so.”
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Musk originally aimed to slash $2 trillion from federal spending but toned down his goal to $1 trillion.
“Unless we’re stopped … we will get to a trillion dollars of savings,” Musk told Kudlow.