‘Tech Support’: Musk holds court in Trump’s first cabinet meeting
Washington: US President Donald Trump ceded the floor to Elon Musk at the first meeting of his new cabinet as he played down suggestions some cabinet secretaries were hostile to the billionaire entrepreneur’s cost-cutting rampage through the government.
Trump also said he would soon target the European Union with 25 per cent tariffs on vehicles and other products, claiming the EU was formed “to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it, but now I’m president”.
Elon Musk addresses Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting at the White House.Credit: AP
A planned meeting between EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also abruptly cancelled on Wednesday, with both parties blaming “scheduling issues”, but European officials said they were caught off guard.
Trump has threatened tariffs on various countries, including neighbours Mexico and Canada, but those were paused for negotiations over drug and immigration disputes. The only generalised tariffs he has implemented are 10 per cent duties on Chinese goods, to which China instantly retaliated.
Musk, who has been a regular presence at the White House since the inauguration, and whose team of young lieutenants has embedded itself at various departments and agencies, did not have a seat at the table for the cabinet meeting, but was invited by the president to give remarks at the start.
“We simply cannot sustain, as a country, $US2 trillion ($3.1 trillion) deficits,” Musk, wearing his trademark dark MAGA cap and a T-shirt printed with “Tech Support”, said.
From left, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.Credit: Bloomberg
“Just the interest on the national debt now exceeds the Defence Department’s spending. If this continues, the country will become de facto bankrupt. It’s not an optional thing, it is an essential thing.”
The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is not a real government department but a White House unit, is on a mission to cut $US1 trillion in government spending and radically shrink the size of the American bureaucracy.
Last week, Musk emailed roughly 2 million federal employees demanding they reply by Monday with a list of five things they did at work the previous week or face termination – something he also did when he purchased Twitter in 2022.
Asked about reports that some cabinet members were unhappy with Musk’s march through their departments, Trump said most of his secretaries were thrilled but hinted at some internal pushback.
Musk told the meeting that the US “simply cannot sustain, as a country, $US2 trillion deficits”.Credit: AP
“Some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you, for the most part, I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled,” he said.
About a million workers have responded to the Musk email so far. Trump said the million who hadn’t were “on the bubble” for dismissal, an American expression for being on the cusp of selection or elimination.
“It’s possible a lot of those people will be actually fired,” he said. “If that happened, that’s OK because that’s what we’re trying to do. This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run.”
Musk described the email as a “pulse check”. He believed some people on the public payroll were dead, fake or working in the private sector.
“We’re literally trying to figure out: are these people real, are they alive and can they write an email?” he said. “If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email. This was not a high bar.”
Musk acknowledged the DOGE team had made mistakes, such as accidentally cancelling funding for ebola virus prevention overseas. “We restored [it] immediately, there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly.”
Trump took questions from a small pool of White House reporters for nearly an hour as the cabinet waited, including on a deal for the US to access Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which is expected to be signed when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
While details of the agreement were still forthcoming, Trump indicated it would involve a US presence on the ground in Ukraine to extract the minerals.
“We’re going to be taking what we’re entitled to take,” Trump said. “It’s a great deal for Ukraine, too, because they get us over there, we’ll be on the land. There’s sort of automatic security [for Ukraine] because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people while we’re there.”
But actual peacekeeping missions would be left to Europe, Trump said. “My No. 1 thing is to get that [killing] stopped. My No. 2 thing is I don’t want to have to pay any more money.”
Trump was asked if it would send a dangerous message to Chinese President Xi Jinping – who regards Taiwan as part of China – if a peace deal allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep Ukrainian territory he gained by force.
“You try and take it away,” Trump replied. “We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides ... We want to get as much back as possible.”
Zelensky confirmed in a video message that he would meet Trump as part of final negotiations on a minerals deal. “It is crucial that America’s assistance is not stopped,” he said. “Strength is essential on the path to peace.”
with AP
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