US politics live: Elon Musk upstages Trump at his first cabinet meeting as President slams United States as ‘bloated, fat, disgusting’

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team has quietly disappeared claims about money it had saved, having got its numbers catastrophically wrong.

Welcome, once again, to our live coverage of US politics.

Donald Trump has held the first cabinet meeting of his new term in office, with billionaire Elon Musk in attendance.

Mr Musk is not a member of the cabinet. In fact it remains unclear exactly what his role in the administration is. Mr Trump has said, repeatedly, that he is head of the cost-cutting body DOGE, but in court the government has argued he is a mere presidential adviser.

Yesterday we learned that a longtime government worker called Amy Gleason is technically the “administrator” of DOGE, and has been the person signing off on its actions.

Whatever his job in the White House actually is, Mr Musk addressed the President’s cabinet during today’s meeting, urging it to co-operate with DOGE’s work.

“Well, I should just call myself a humble tech support here,” Mr Musk said.

“That is almost a literal description of the work that the team is doing, as helping fix the government computer systems.”

Reinforcing the theme, the Tesla and SpaceX boss was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “tech support” under his now signature black coat and MAGA hat ensemble.

Elon Musk addresses the cabinet. The President appears to be looking at his phone under the table – not nodding off – though either way he’s hardly riveted. Picture: Pool via AP

Mr Musk conceded that DOGE “will make mistakes” and “won’t be perfect”, joking about his staff “accidentally” cancelling an essential ebola prevention program.

“I think we all want ebola protection,” he said.

“So we restored the ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption.”

We should note that this is disputed; according to aid groups, the ebola funding and a similar program combating HIV remain in stasis as part of the broader freeze on USAID’s budget.

Unfortunately, the funding suspension has coincided with an ebola outbreak in Africa. Oops.

When Mr Trump spoke, he voiced support for Mr Musk’s email, sent to all federal government workers, demanding they respond with a list of their recent accomplishments. Mr Musk has said anyone who doesn’t reply will be fired.

However most of Mr Trump’s department heads – many of whom were sitting around the cabinet table – have instructed their staff they don’t need to comply.

“I think Elon wants to, and I think it’s a good idea,” Mr Trump said of the push.

“You got a lot of people that have not responded. So we’re trying to figure out, do they exist? Who are they? And it’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired.

“And if that happens, that’s OK, because that’s what we’re trying to do.

“This country has gotten bloated, fat, disgusting, and incompetently run.”

Surprisingly perhaps, given Mr Trump and Mr Musk were both present, none of the cabinet secretaries took the opportunity to clarify whether they or Mr Musk had the ultimate authority on the matter. As things stand it remains unclear whether government workers should be listening to their direct bosses, or to Mr Musk.

Read on for the latest updates.

Originally published as US politics live: Elon Musk upstages Trump at his first cabinet meeting as President slams United States as ‘bloated, fat, disgusting’