AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Elon Musk, the billionaire tech executive, has been plowing through federal agencies looking for cuts. And tonight, he defended his work from the Oval Office. President Trump was there, too, to sign an executive order to boost Musk's effort, known as the Department of Government Efficiency. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now from the White House. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hello. OK, so just start us off. Describe the scene for us.
KEITH: President Trump was seated behind the resolute desk while Musk and his young son stood next to the president on his right. Trump called the press in for this executive order signing. But in the end, the journalists in the room never saw him sign it. It is signed, though.
CHANG: OK.
KEITH: Trump started out briefly, and then just handed the floor over to Musk, who went on at length about his work, offering anecdotes about alleged government waste and making bold and vague statements.
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ELON MUSK: If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the president and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.
KEITH: At times, he talked about minute details, like payment categorization codes being missing from Treasury payments. But it isn't clear how he's backing up claims that he has already saved the American public billions of dollars. At one point, he was asked by reporters about claims that the U.S. had given $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas - something that isn't true - but has been amplified by the president recently.
And just to paint a picture, at this point, Musk has his son up on his shoulders, and the kid is playing with his hair and putting his fingers in his dad's ears. Musk did admit that some of the things he will say, like that, were incorrect. But he said that, you know, there really - he said that it really would be an enormous amount of condoms to send anywhere.
CHANG: True.
KEITH: Yeah. And then he downplayed the criticism.
CHANG: But let me ask you this, Tam, I mean, many of Musk's efforts - like the fork in the road email offering federal employees a chance to resign or shutting down USAID - many of those efforts have been put on hold by judges. And there's been a lot of talk, right? Like, there's been a lot of social media posts from both Musk and Vice President JD Vance that they might not abide by court rulings if they disagree with those rulings. What did President Trump say about that?
KEITH: He was dismissive of judges who he called activist and said, he, the president was elected by the people to run the country. At this point, his efforts have met with major challenges in the courts. Trump said he will always abide by the courts and will appeal. But appeals take a long time, and he hopes judges will allow the administration to stop fraud if it is happening.
CHANG: Well, let me also ask you, 'cause Musk and his DOGE project have gotten a lot of criticism from good government watchdogs about potential conflicts of interest because many of Musk's businesses have significant contracts with the federal government, and he isn't publicly disclosing all of these potential conflicts of interest. How did Trump and Musk respond to that?
KEITH: So we should note that DOGE is not an official government agency. Musk said that he checks in regularly to make sure Trump is OK with what he and his team are doing. And Musk insisted he is being extremely transparent, so transparent that everyone could see the conflicts if they were to happen. But I will just cite my colleague Stephen Fowler's reporting here. He says DOGE doesn't have a functional website where they show evidence to back up the claims.
CHANG: Wow.
KEITH: They have posted a few online examples on X. But when Stephen looked at a database of government spending, he found that the numbers just aren't adding up.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Thank you so much, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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