Elon Musk tries to rehab DOGE after backlash, mistakes
Elon Musk is pushing to improve the image of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), suggesting the Tesla CEO is aware of the boogeyman persona he has created for himself and his cost-cutting push since joining President Trump’s team.
Musk went on Fox News on Thursday night to claim he is being careful and compassionate with his overhaul of the federal government, amid mounting criticism over his past statements on social media and emails to federal workers.
He also introduced several members of the DOGE team in an attempt to quell some of the concerns around the mysterious nature of their work.
The tech billionaire is “on a rehab tour,” argued former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who cited that even Republicans have criticized his government overhaul work, sometimes behind closed-doors.
“The White House has been watching the news media’s coverage of the DOGE effort, which has been mostly negative. Additionally, a significant number of Congressional Republicans have complained both publicly and privately. Musk is on a rehab tour which makes sense because what he's trying to do is conceptually popular. [T]he execution is where he’s lost a lot of the public,” Curbelo said.
Musk was joined by seven other members of the DOGE team for the interview with Fox News’ Brett Baier, where they made the case for their push to slash $1 trillion in government spending.
The group, which featured fellow billionaires and business leaders, argued that DOGE is taking a “careful” approach to government cuts and is focused on “treating everyone with dignity and respect.”
“I do agree that we actually want to be careful in the cuts,” Musk said. “So, we want to measure twice, if not thrice, and to cut once. And actually, that is our approach. They may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that, which is not to say that …we don't make mistakes.”
Musk’s tone was a significant shift from months of criticizing and even vilifying the federal workforce as he laid the groundwork DOGE’s transformation of Washington.
Earlier this month, Musk shared a post from another user on his social platform X, suggesting that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler were not responsible for the millions of deaths that occurred under their leadership. Instead, the post blamed public sector workers. Musk later deleted the post
Musk also made disparaging comments about federal workers during Trump’s first cabinet meeting in February, saying his email to demanding they send him a list of weekly accomplishments was a “pulse check.”
“Are they alive, and can they write an email?” Musk said at the time.
Musk’s push to slash the federal workforce and budget has also swept up non-controversial and even essential government programs.
DOGE has faced scrutiny in recent months for numerous high-profile mistakes. The Trump administration mistakenly fired employees working with the nation’s nuclear stockpile last month amid broader cuts at the Energy Department. It later scrambled to rehire them.
The Department of Agriculture similarly fired employees working on the government’s response to the bird flu before attempting to bring them back to the agency.
DOGE’s efforts to highlight spending cuts online have been riddled with errors. They accidentally listed an $8 million contract as being worth $8 billion on its “wall of receipts.” And a single $655 million contract at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was counted three times.
Musk also revealed during a public Cabinet meeting last month that DOGE accidentally cancelled Ebola prevention before restoring it.
“If we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all, that would be like saying someone in baseball's got to bat a thousand. That's impossible,” Musk said Thursday. “So, when we do make mistakes, we correct them quickly, and we move on.”
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed seeking to stymie DOGE's efforts. Many challenge DOGE's ability to access agencies' confidential systems, some claim Musk was required to face Senate confirmation while others seek to force the group to respond to open records requests.
A federal judge ruled earlier this month that Musk and DOGE likely exercised unconstitutional authority “in multiple ways” in dismantling the USAID, which was the group’s first major target within the federal government.
The tech billionaire himself has faced an intense backlash over his work with the administration, which has spilled over into other spheres and begun to impact his businesses. Tesla has seen its stock plummet in recent weeks while being targeted by both peaceful protests and violent demonstrations.
Musk has also drawn backlash from Republican lawmakers, who are bristling at changes to the Social Security Administration that could make it harder for constituents to receive their benefits and assistance with obtaining them.
Cayce Myers, a public relations professor at Virginia Tech, suggested that the administration is looking to cast DOGE as a broader government initiative rather than an effort tied to a single individual.
“With a personality like Musk, who was already a celebrity coming into 2025, having him as the face of DOGE and also the leader of DOGE, made it seem, I think, more individualized,” Myers said.
“I think they know that they need to explain the initiatives better,” he added, noting that the media’s coverage of DOGE has often focused on its “opaque nature” and confusion over how decisions are being made.
The Fox News interview represented the first public appearance of many of Musk’s lieutenants at DOGE after months of mystery about who was involved in the cost-cutting effort.
Musk was joined by his longtime ally Steve Davis; Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia; software engineer Aram Moghaddassi; health care entrepreneur Brad Smith; Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong; Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause and former oil executive Tyler Hassen.
Notably absent from the interview was DOGE administrator Amy Gleason, who the White House has said is the formal head of the initiative.
Several of the DOGE team alluded to a sense of patriotism that made them want to join in with Musk’s government overhaul.
“[I’m] blessed with four beautiful children, my wife and I. But we have a real fiscal crisis, and this is not sustainable. And what's worse, back to my children and everyone else's children, is we are burdening them with that debt,” said Krause, who is leading DOGE’s efforts at the Treasury Department.
Armstrong, who works at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for DOGE, argued that money is “sloshing out the door” in the federal government, pointing to “duplicative functions.”
OPM has been largely in charge of DOGE’s effort to slash the federal workforce, directing agencies to fire probationary employees and prepare for mass layoffs. Armstrong emphasized compassion for federal workers when discussing the cuts in Thursday’s interview.
“This is not about the employees. There's been many, many hardworking well-meaning people who took these jobs. These jobs were out there. They applied for them, they took them,” he said. “It's just that they're duplicating the effort of 40 offices. So, you've got that. You've got overstaffing.”
“Once those decisions are made, there’s a very heavy focus on being generous, being caring, being compassionate, and treating everyone with dignity and respect,” Armstrong added, pointing to the administration’s deferred resignation program.
His comments stand in sharp contrast to some of Musk's and other top Trump officials’ remarks about the federal workforce.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought said in a 2023 video obtained by ProPublica. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
Meanwhile, President Trump has stood by Musk, defending his work overhauling the government and defending him as a person and a businessman. The White House has gone to bat for Tesla too, including when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick encouraged Americans to buy Tesla’s struggling stock.
But, critics think the efforts to defend Musk and improve his image won’t help change Americans’ minds, given the outrage critics have about his work.
“No amount of spin can change what Americans are feeling first-hand from the devastating impact that Elon Musk’s DOGE is having on everything from Social Security to national parks. The damage is done and Americans know that Musk, Trump, and their cronies’ DOGE efforts are designed to enrich themselves at the cost of everyday Americans,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan government watchdog.
He added, “It’s a message we will continue to reinforce as DOGE grows even more extreme.”