Musk intensifies government spending attack with push to cut all regulations

Elon Musk has proposed a “wholesale removal of regulations” in an intensification of his crusade to slash US federal government spending.

On a call aired on X, the social media platform he owns, the multibillionaire entrepreneur said regulations should be “gone” as vocal opposition grew against his mission as Donald Trump’s enforcer as the head of a newly created “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

“Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said in call joined by Vivek Ramaswamy, until recently the joint head of Doge, and two Republican senators, Joni Ernst and Mike Lee.

“Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.”

He also said the early days of Trump’s presidency, combined with a Republican-controlled Congress, presented a unique chance of implementing a radical overhaul of US government.

“If it’s not possible now, it’ll never be possible. This is our shot,” he said. “This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. And if we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”

Musk’s incursion into the entrails of the US government has caused shockwaves. He and his team of recruits – some of them tech students and one said to be a 19-year-old high school graduate – have gained access to employment files and tightly controlled financial and data system at the US treasury, accounting for trillions of dollars of government spending.

Musk has boasted of killing off USAid, the government’s conduit of international aid programmes, calling it an “evil” “criminal organisation” and saying he would feed it into “the wood chipper”. Thousands of staff members have been placed on unpaid furlough. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, cast some confusion on that boast by saying during a trip to Central America that he was now in charge of the agency, increasing the likelihood that USAid could be combined with the US state department.

Musk’s team has also gained access to the office of personnel management, the federal government’s human resources agency, allowing them to view employment records, while Musk claims to have cancelled up to 50% of federal building contracts for underused office space.

The Doge team intends to insert artificial intelligence tools into the government computer systems to assess contracts and identify cuts, the New York Times reported.

With critics complaining that Musk’s multiplicity of government contracts from his various businesses created conflicts of interest, even Trump felt driven to tell reporters that he did not have unlimited power and could only act with his approval.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t,” he told reporters in the White House. “If there’s a conflict, then we won’t let him get near it.”

Democrats have accused Musk of flagrantly violating the law and “unconstitutional interference”.

“Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that,” Jaime Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee, said outside USAid’s headquarters on Monday.

“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk and that’s going to become real clear.”

Progressive groups were due to stage a “nobody elected Elon” rally outside the US treasury headquarters on Tuesday.