Elon Musk says he’s no longer convinced his crusade to clean up government waste through the Department of Government Efficiency — better known as DOGE — was worth the chaos it unleashed.
Musk admitted he’s deeply unsure whether his high-profile stint running Washington’s most meme-able agency actually worked, in a wide-ranging — and, at times, philosophical — interview on “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
“We’re a little bit successful. We’re somewhat successful,” the Tesla founder said when Miller asked if DOGE achieved what he’d hoped.
But he quickly undercut the praise, lamenting how entrenched the waste was.
“There was, like, probably $100, maybe $200 billion worth of zombie payments per year,” he said, noting DOGE shut down only a fraction of it.
The SpaceX CEO said cutting off even that much cash came with serious blowback.
“If you stop money going to political corruption, they will lash out big time,” he explained. “They really want the money to keep flowing.”
When Miller asked point-blank whether he’d do DOGE again, Musk hesitated.
“I mean, no, I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically … worked on my companies, essentially.”
He added that in another timeline, without the political storm, “the cars — they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”
The tech mogul was referring to a violent outbreak of vandalism on Tesla vehicles earlier this year after he began working with the second Trump administration.
Musk also said joining Washington never gave him any illusions.
He blasted what he called “massive transfer payments” to migrants and claimed the system creates a “gigantic money magnet” that encourages people to come to the US.
“I wouldn’t say I was super illusioned to begin with,” he shrugged, before launching into a blistering critique of government spending.
Despite the heavy political talk, the X owner frequently veered into the personal. He confessed that “AI nightmares” still jolt him awake — “many days in a row,” he said — and he’s running life on six hours of sleep.
When asked what actually keeps him up, Musk deadpanned: “Why do I wake up in nightmares? Oh, AI. Yeah.”
He insisted he has no “irrational fears,” saying, “If I find an irrational fear, I … squelch it. Fear is the mind killer.”
But even the world’s richest man has limits — especially in public. Musk said he can’t do anything “where there’s the general public” because of instant selfie mobs and “serious security issues,” especially after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“Life is on a hardcore mode,” he said. “You make one mistake, and you’re dead.”
In the end, Musk’s uncertainty about DOGE hung over the conversation with Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top White House aides — but he hedged on whether he would return to the initiative if given a chance.
“I don’t think so,” he mused. “Knowing what I know now.”
