Elon Musk concedes DOGE unlikely to find $2 trillion in budget cuts but heres what would be an epic outcome

Is DOGE all bark and no bite?Billionaire Elon Musk has walked back a prior claim that his vaunted blue ribbon commission on government bloat and inefficiencies would be able to slash the roughly $6.75 trillion annual federal budget by $2 trillion.Musk, 53, explained that the $2 trillion goal he floated on the campaign trail was merely the “best-case outcome” and admitted that he believes there may only be a “good shot” at achieving just half of that.“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion, I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” Musk told Stagwell CEO Mark Penn during an X Spaces conversation.

“If you try for $2 trillion you have a good shot at getting $1 [trillion].“If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth, such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation,” he added.“So that, I think, would be an epic outcome.” The South African-born Tesla founder has long had a reputation for dramatically overstating what he can accomplish, such as his 2011 claim he’d put a man on Mars in 10 years or his promise that Teslas would have “full autonomy” by 2017.President-elect Donald Trump tapped Musk to co-head the meme-inspired Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.DOGE’s name is inspired by Dogecoin and memes about Kabosu, a Shiba Inu dog from Japan.

Through DOGE, which is set to expire July 4, 2026, Musk and Ramaswamy intend to test the limits of executive power to streamline federal government structures and claw back wasteful spending.They will serve in an advisory role with the White House Office of Management and Budget and presumably collaborate with Congress.Experts have raised questions about the $2 trillion benchmark Musk laid out during his stumping with Trump at Madison Square Garden last October.

During fiscal year 2024, the fede...