Investing.com-- Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stated in a Fox News interview Thursday evening that the department is on track to complete the majority of its targeted $1 trillion in federal spending cuts by the end of May. The news provided a glimmer of hope that Musk could return to his duties as CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) soon.
"I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame," Musk told Fox News’ "Special Report with Bret Baier", referring to the 130 day time frame.
Musk said no formal report would be released since DOGE is cutting waste and fraud in real-time and reporting it on the DOGE website. He said the goal is to cut government waste by $4 billion every day.
"Our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day, every day, seven days a week. And so far, we are succeeding," he added.
Musk added that the reductions can be achieved without compromising essential services, assuring that Social Security recipients will receive increased benefits as a result of these efforts.
Measures have included significant reductions in agency expenditures and staffing across various federal departments, focusing on eliminating waste and fraud.
Musk, serving as a special government employee, has reported savings estimated at $115 billion through workforce reductions, asset sales, and contract cancellations.
In addition to Musk being interviewed, several members of the DOGE team were with him. DOGE staffer Tyler Hassen said he was running five businesses in Houston that he left to help save the country. "I left great people to do this… I feel like this is me giving back to the country," Hassen said.
Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB) co-founder Joe Gebbia is working with DOGE to digitize the government’s antiquated retirement process, currently housed in 22,000 filing cabinets in a Pennsylvania cave. "The process takes many months — and we’re going to make it just many days," Gebbia said.
On Social Security, a DOGE staffer highlighted that the department gets phone calls daily from people trying to change direct deposit information. "We learned 40% of the phone calls they get are from fraudsters… Almost half," DOGE staffer Adam Moghaddassi said.
However, some experts question the accuracy of these figures and caution that achieving the $1 trillion target may necessitate cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security, which President Donald Trump has pledged to protect.
Despite political backlash and nationwide protests against DOGE’s initiatives, Musk and his team remain committed to the cuts.
Musk called the efforts by DOGE a "revolution... maybe the biggest since the original revolution." He said the agency is getting lots of complaints along the way, but the loudest are coming from the fraudsters themselves.
"Are we gonna get a lot of complaints along the way? Absolutely… You know who complains the loudest and with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters," Musk commented.
Tesla shares are up less than 1% in pre-open trading Friday on hopes Musk can complete his DOGE duties in the near term.
(Ayushman Ojha contributed to this report)