U.S. President Donald Trump defended his decision to give billionaire businessman Elon Musk a significant role in his administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), amid criticism for freezing funding for USAID, which impacted foreign aid programs worldwide.
Trump limited the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) when he ordered a 90-day freeze on expenditures on January 24.
This decision affected many businesses and nonprofit organizations in Ukraine, which are now facing difficulties. It also impacted aid programs for people in Afghanistan.
The decision has also resonated in Kosovo, where USAID has invested more than $1 billion in Kosovo’s development since 1999.
Trump and Musk discussed this decision during their first joint television interview, which aired on February 18 on Fox News, a conservative American media outlet.
Trump said he made the decision to freeze USAID funding because his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, had spent more than necessary, including foreign aid that, according to Trump, did not serve U.S. interests and increased the deficit.
Since 2022, USAID has provided billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, development support, and direct budgetary assistance to Ukraine.
Musk and Trump were not asked about the suspension of aid for programs in Ukraine during the interview or about Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
The interview mainly focused on Trump’s relationship with Musk, the world’s richest man, and the reasons why he chose him to lead DOGE.
“I know many businessmen, and they’re not necessarily good people,” Trump said. Musk is a great person who “wants to see the country move forward,” Trump told Fox News interviewer Sean Hannity, a friend of the president.
Trump said that DOGE has fought waste, fraud, and abuse in government, already saving millions of taxpayer dollars.
Since Trump returned to office as president on January 20, DOGE has moved from one department to another, firing or dismissing thousands of government employees in a major overhaul of the federal administration designed to cut costs and reduce the size of government.
A list of programs identified, some of which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, was displayed on the screen during the joint interview.
Musk said he took the role to reduce bureaucracy and prevent the United States from going bankrupt.
“The goal is to cut a trillion dollars from the deficit,” Musk said, claiming that Trump “found the deficit at two trillion dollars when he took office.”
Musk said the average American taxpayer should be “furious” about how their money has been spent.
He added that some of the people on his DOGE team, which has been heavily criticized by Democrats for actions deemed illegal, are federal employees. Others are software engineers who could earn million-dollar salaries but have chosen to work for him instead.
President Trump said that Musk is simply carrying out his executive orders and promised that traditional programs like Social Security and government-funded health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, “will not be touched.”
However, the arrival of DOGE employees this week at the Social Security Administration led to the immediate resignation of its head due to an apparent clash with Musk’s team over cost-cutting measures. Other senior federal officials have resigned when faced with DOGE’s drastic approach to federal spending, reports REL.
Trump also said that Musk has not asked for any favors for his companies—specifically SpaceX, which has numerous contracts with the U.S. government, and Tesla, which has benefited from U.S. subsidies promoting electric cars.
Musk said he would step back from any decision-making if he ever faced a situation involving his businesses, and Trump added, “If there is any conflict, he will not be involved.”
Musk told Hannity that he has paid a price for his support of Trump but intends to continue.
“I’m a technologist, and I try to create technology that helps people and improves the world,” Musk said.
Trump said he has always respected Musk, but his admiration grew when Musk offered to use Starlink communication satellites for people in North Carolina, whose communities had been destroyed by a hurricane last year.
His admiration grew even more when SpaceX managed to land a rocket on Earth and catch it in the air “like a beautiful little baby,” and he decided he wanted Musk on his team.
