US President Donald Trump has said that Elon Musk, who is presiding over a plan to eliminate US government jobs, will help track down billions of dollars in fraud in federal agencies.
According to an AFP report, in an interview given to Fox News before the Super Bowl football championship, the US president said that the public wants him to “find the garbage.”
He praised Elon Musk’s efforts to reduce spending, saying that Musk, the richest person in the world and the president’s cost-cutting efforts, has helped a lot in rooting out unnecessary spending.
He further said that we are going to track down hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud and misuse.
In interview highlights released by Fox News, Donald Trump is saying, “You know the people elected me to do this.”
The US president has issued several executive orders to reduce federal spending during his three weeks in office.
He has appointed SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk to lead federal spending reduction efforts under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Although the administration has identified several government programs that Trump believes should be eliminated or reduced, it has not presented evidence of fraud or deception in relation to them.
Elon Musk, a major Trump supporter and donor, has taken extraordinary steps to close the US Agency for International Development and laid off thousands of employees. The DOGE reform team has raised concerns among critics by gaining access to the personal and financial data of millions of Americans through the US Treasury Department.
On Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s plan to send 2,200 USAID employees on paid leave.
A day later, another US judge issued an emergency order blocking the DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system, which contains sensitive data on Americans.
The US president said in his interview that he would order Elon Musk in the next day and a half to redirect his government’s spending cuts to the Department of Education, which is often the target of Republican discontent.
“After that, I will move on to the military,” he said, vowing to review Pentagon spending, which is more than $850 billion.
According to Mark Pocon, a Democrat in the House of Representatives, the role of Tesla owner Elon Musk is facing criticism because his companies have signed billions of dollars in contracts with the US government, worth more than $20 billion.
