The Week in Musk: "Some of the things that I say will be incorrect"

Elon Musk, joined by his son X, delivers remarks alongside President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

"Some of the things that I say will be incorrect," Elon Musk admitted during a bizarre Tuesday press conference on the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE). Standing alongside President Donald Trump — who, seated behind the Resolute Desk, remained uncharacteristically passive — Musk was discussing his "incorrect" claim that USAID had allocated $50 million on condoms for Palestinians living in Gaza. Except the condoms were never going to Palestine, or elsewhere. "I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere, frankly," he said. There was never a plan to spend $50 million on condoms; USAID spent just over $8 million worldwide on the contraceptives during the 2023 fiscal year.

Without citing any evidence, Musk justified DOGE’s existence by claiming that "quite a few" federal civil servants had "somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth."

Trump, meanwhile, used the presser to announce an executive order to give DOGE even more authority. The new executive order states that agencies must "coordinate and consult" with DOGE for the purpose of "large-scale reductions in force" and limit hiring to "essential positions."

‘Depress the workforce and increase attrition’

How DOGE plans to cull the federal workforce was captured succinctly by a Washington Post report this week. The report cited sources familiar with DOGE who say the outfit wants "to depress workforce morale and increase attrition." The plan is simple: Browbeat workers into resigning by simultaneously banning remote work and closing federal office buildings, ensuring that many civil servants are truly incapable of performing their jobs. Their intended replacements? AI, of course.

"The end goal is replacing the human workforce with machines," a U.S. official told the newspaper. "Everything that can be machine-automated will be. And the technocrats will replace the bureaucrats."

On Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management advised agencies to fire most "probationary" staff — a group of about 200,000 federal workers who generally have less than one year of service. The final decision is being left to agency heads, but several have already fired probationary staffers.

Musk lashes out at the judiciary

On Sunday, Musk responded to one of the lawsuits filed against DOGE by arguing for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer. "Federal judges who repeatedly abuse their authority to obstruct the will of the people via their elected representatives should be impeached," Musk wrote on X. Engelmayer ruled to temporarily block DOGE’s access to Treasury data after a suit was filed by 19 state attorneys general.

DOGE could face similar problems at other agencies following a lawsuit from 14 attorneys general who argue that Musk has been granted "unchecked legal authority" and lacks the requisite congressional approval to enact the cuts he is making.

More from Reuters:

"Oblivious to the threat this poses to the nation, President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities," the states said, calling Musk an "agent of chaos" in the government… Two federal judges overseeing ongoing privacy cases against DOGE will consider on Friday whether the agency will have access to Treasury Department payment systems and potentially sensitive data at U.S. health, consumer protection and labor agencies.

DOGE spins cuts to critical education data

DOGE appears to have preempted a ProPublica report on its Department of Education cuts by publishing its spin in advance of the piece’s publication. This is something of a classic move in crisis PR: The subject of an article receives a request for comment and then decides to make the information public on their terms. In this case, DOGE’s X account announced that the Department of Education "terminated 89 contracts worth $881 [million]." The post seemed to implicitly link the $881 million to a prior DOGE cut defunding "DEI training."

However, ProPublica discovered that DOGE had slashed contracts handled by the Institute of Education Sciences, which funds research on best practices in the field of public education. The cuts targeted research programs that were started but have yet to be completed. "This is an incredible waste of taxpayer dollars, which have been invested — per Congressional appropriations and many according to specific legislation — in long-standing data collection and analysis efforts, and policy and program evaluations," American Institutes for Research spokesperson Dana Tofig told ProPublica.

The truth about those "Armored Teslas"

You may have heard that the State Department submitted a $400 million bid for “Armored Teslas,” leading many to believe that the federal government was rewarding Musk’s loyalty to Trump by taking some of those illiquid Cybertrucks off of his hands. But that narrative doesn’t quite add up. On Wednesday, Drop Site News reported its discovery of a line item in the State Department’s 2025 Procurement Forecast for "Armored Teslas (Production Units)." The State Department, in turn, amended the spreadsheet to remove the mention of the Tesla brand. It all looked very fishy.

But the line item predates Trump's taking office by more than a month. The solicitation itself appears to have been for a contract to install vehicle armor onto the State Department’s existing Tesla fleet, a bid that Tesla likely would not have fulfilled itself, as noted by Gizmodo’s Matthew Gault in a piece breaking down the scandal:

State confirmed this in an email to me and said that no government contract had been awarded to Tesla or any other vehicle manufacturer. It said that the Biden administration had asked it to look into how it might add armor to off-the-shelf electric vehicles and it was in the early stages of the project…" As a next step in that process, an official solicitation would be sent out to vehicle manufacturers to bid," a State Department Spokesperson said. "However, the solicitation is on hold and there are no current plans to issue it."

The State Department still has not explained why it removed Tesla’s name from the line item following Drop Site News’s reporting.

Musk's $10 million gift to Trump

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has agreed to settle a 2021 lawsuit Trump filed against Twitter and its prior leadership after his account was banned in the aftermath of the Capitol riot. Trump’s case had stalled out: A California judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2022, leading Trump to file an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. But Musk wants to settle it anyway for the small price of $10 million, per the Journal. Musk followed the lead of Meta, which faced a similar lawsuit from Trump that it chose to settle for $25 million shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Both settlements reek of an attempt to gratify the notoriously avaricious president.

Musk targets massive rocket project, drawing Republican opposition

By and large, congressional Republicans have been enthusiastic supporters of the spending cuts implemented by the Trump-Musk White House. The proposed termination of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) could be an exception. The $24 billion rocket project is Washington’s literal moonshot — NASA hopes to use it to land astronauts on the lunar surface within the decade — but it has exceeded budget expectations and dragged on for 13 years.

Trump’s pick to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, who has ties to Musk’s SpaceX, has described it as antiquated and exorbitant. Musk has said the SLS makes him "feel sad."

Where the SLS has succeeded is in its provision of 28,000 jobs across 42 states, primarily in the Republican strongholds of Alabama and Texas. Republican lawmakers whose constituents rely on SLS work are not keen on shuttering the project. "The SLS will be fine," Tommy Tuberville, a U.S. Senator from Alabama, told Reuters. "Because of Elon Musk involved in the DOGE situation, [I know] there's a lot of rumors out there on that. But I got full confidence on the SLS and the future for them."

It’s worth noting the SLS is being produced by SpaceX competitors Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Naturally, Musk believes SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy would do a better job. While the Falcon Heavy is not as powerful as the SLS, the SpaceX route would certainly be cheaper: The Falcon Heavy costs $250 million per launch, while the SLS is expected to cost $2-4 billion per launch.

NASA acting head tells staff to draw "inspiration" from DOGE

Speaking of NASA, its acting administrator, Janet Petro, issued an email last week urging her subordinates to take "some inspiration from the spirit of the Department of Government Efficiency" by leaning "into this new opportunity to maximize efficiencies." (NASA has spent tens of billions on SpaceX contracts over the years.) Petro has since announced that the agency is "going to have DOGE come" and "similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies, [look] at our payments and what money has gone out."

Hegseth welcomes DOGE to the Pentagon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on Fox Business’s "Sunday Morning Futures" that "we welcome Elon Musk and DOGE coming into our department to help us identify additional ways in which we can streamline processes, fast-track acquisitions, cut waste, cut tail, to put it to tooth."

Musk's involvement with "streamlining" the Defense Department raises serious red flags. SpaceX also has massive contracts with the DoD, including a specialized satellite communications network, Starshield, reportedly worth billions.

DOGE-related national security risks

In Foreign Affairs, James Goldgeier and Elizabeth Saunderson detailed the national security risks that arise from the inexperienced DOGE team gaining access to many of the federal government’s most vital data systems and funding streams:

Consider what the intelligence agencies of U.S. allies and adversaries see when the American president grants sweeping access to the basic systems that make the U.S. government run to a team of young people who have no government experience, who may not have been put through standard personnel vetting processes, and who work for an unelected figure with extensive personal financial interests in national security spending. American adversaries surely see an espionage and blackmail bonanza. Less obviously but just as crucially, U.S. allies, accustomed to doing business and sharing information with the United States on a day-to-day basis, are likely to take a hard look at their typical routines. Will they be willing to continue operating as usual?

The Washington Post reported that consulting firm and federal contractor Booz Allen Hamilton issued a written warning about DOGE’s access to the Treasury’s payment system. The firm, which handles threat assessments for the Treasury Department, retracted the warning after its publicization.

Elon says he would withdraw bid for OpenAI if it remains a non-profit

Earlier this week, Musk gathered a group of his favorite investors to produce an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman quickly rejected the offer. Musk, who is currently suing OpenAI over claims the firm violated its founding principles by restructuring into a nonprofit-corporate hybrid, replied by stating he will withdraw the offer if OpenAI reverts exclusively to a nonprofit. "If OpenAI, Inc.‘s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid," read a Wednesday court filing submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. "Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets."

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Musk Minutes

The New Yorker published an excellent piece this week laying out what Musk stands to gain from DOGE’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Labor (DoL). Musk’s two biggest companies, Tesla and SpaceX, have atrocious records with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a branch of the DoL. But with Musk’s lackeys gaining access to the DOL, employees might avoid reporting safety violations. Those who have already filed complaints must now worry about their anonymity being compromised. (New Yorker)

The AP found that Tesla has done exceptionally well in defamation lawsuits against Chinese news outlets and consumers who have denigrated its products, including some Tesla owners injured in crashes they claimed were caused by non-user malfunctions. (Associated Press)

The AP also published an informative explainer on how Musk’s relationship with Trump and his work for the White House could benefit Tesla. "Trump’s election, and the bromance between Trump and Musk, will essentially lead to the defanging of a regulatory environment that’s been stifling Tesla," Wall Street analyst Daniel Ives told the wire service. (Associated Press)

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Musk, a special government employee (SGE), will be allowed to keep a report disclosing his financial interests confidential. (New York Times)

The White House’s plans to cover for Musk extend to his aides at DOGE. The documents DOGE produces will be "subject to Presidential Records" rules, according to DOGE spokesperson Katie Miller. Barring judicial intervention, this means they will not be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests until at least 2034, if at all. (New York Times)

Wired scanned Discord servers and other online chat logs to illuminate how Musk assembled his DOGE team. Some of the recruitment efforts took place on chatrooms that cater to SpaceX interns and former Palantir employees. (Wired)

Last month, Musk claimed he has no interest in buying TikTok, sharing this malapropism at an Axel Springer summit: "I'm not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok. I do not acquire companies in general, it's quite rare." (Reuters)

For the first time since Trump’s inauguration, Musk’s private jet left D.C. on Saturday, bound for Austin, Texas. (Business Insider)

Tesla CFO Taneja Vaibhav offloaded 7,000 shares for $2.6 million. Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm sold 112,390 shares for $43 million. Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk's brother, sold 75,000 Tesla shares worth about $28 million. (Electrek) (Business Insider)