Elon Musk is reportedly telling Republicans he is not to blame for the firings of thousands of federal workers in a push to downsize the US government. Tesla’s CEO has said in private talks this week that those decisions are left to various federal agencies.
The message from one of President Donald Trump‘s most influential advisers came as Republicans publicly supported Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but privately raised questions as personnel cuts reverberate across the country. Republican Representative Richard Hudson said “Elon doesn’t fire people” after a dinner-time pizza meeting with Mr Musk in the basement of the Capitol. Mr Hudson added: “He doesn’t have hiring and firing authority. The president’s empowered him to go uncover this information, that’s it.”
It’s a remarkable shift of emphasis away from the chainsaw-wielding tech entrepreneur whose vast power has made him a revered and feared figure in the second Trump administration.
The Republican president said on Thursday he has instructed department secretaries to work with DOGE but to “be very precise” about which workers will stay or go, using a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet”.
Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.”
He suggested Cabinet and agency leaders would take the lead, but Mr Musk could push harder down the line. The president said: “If they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”
He had said in an earlier social media post that Mr Musk and Cabinet officials will meet every two weeks to advance their cost-cutting goals.
The comments come amid mounting legal disputes over Mr Musk’s attempts to centralise management of the government workforce and bypass the traditional role of Congress to appropriate federal dollars.
Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez said Mr Musk told lawmakers some of the folks were on probation and the billionaire didn’t fire them, but they were supposedly fired by agencies as “they messed up”.
Mr Musk and his team have burrowed into agencies, accessing sensitive data and rattling career officials with their demands. Top officials have stepped down after refusing to comply with Mr Musk’s team.
Tens of thousands of workers accepted an offer to resign early and more are facing potential redundancies. Mr Musk has previously said “good progress” is being made.
The speed and scale of the cuts are introducing the richest man in the world to political fallout. When the topic of the fired federal workers came up during a Senate lunch, Mr Musk sought to deflect blame.
Republican Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky said Mr Musk went so far as to emphasise that not only had DOGE not recommended mass termination of probationary employees, but that he thought some federal agencies were either incompetent or sabotaging the effort. Mr Musk told them he wanted more precise terminations of people who weren’t performing.
Mr Barr said: “The point that he was making is that DOGE had not made recommendations for across-the-board cuts of all probationary employees at every agency.”
In fact, scores of fired workers are being recalled back to work across federal agencies. This week, about 180 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were being told they could come back.
Mr Musk was invited to Capitol Hill this week by Mr Trump’s allies and party leaders to provide more information to lawmakers facing questions about the DOGE cuts.
Many Republicans are being hammered at town halls, so much so that House Speaker Mike Johnson has encouraged them to meet with constituents in other venues.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their allies in advocacy groups have been highlighting the way the cutbacks will hurt Americans.
On Thursday, 141 House Democrats led by Virginia Representative Gerald Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called for the reinstatement of all the probationary employees who have been unlawfully fired.
They wrote: “Indiscriminately firing thousands of these employees threatens the future of the nonpartisan federal workforce and our government’s ability to deliver life-saving services to the American people.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said if the White House wants to abolish an entire agency such as the Department of Education then it should “bring the bill to Congress”, adding: “We welcome that fight.”
Mr Jeffries added: “We’ll stand on the side of the American people, and (Republicans will) continue to stand on the side of Elon Musk.”