The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency has had one public face since late January: tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, who posts nearly constantly about DOGE on social media and has given several media interviews about its budget-slashing effort.
Musk said as recently as last month that it was a “crime” to publicly name other people who worked at DOGE, and his strict secrecy helped to keep DOGE employees out of the spotlight, even as they went about radically remaking the federal government and trying to dismantle entire agencies.
But in a switch, Musk introduced a few other faces Thursday in a group interview on Fox News that featured some of his chief lieutenants. They included DOGE staffers who have worked quietly behind the scenes to upend key components of the U.S. government such as the Treasury Department and the Social Security Administration.
Follow live politics coverage here
Seven DOGE employees participated in the interview on “Special Report” hosted by Bret Baier, and it was by far their most extensive public comments since President Donald Trump began his second term on Jan. 20.
The seven DOGE staffers struck a more technocratic tone than Musk often does in his rhetoric about the federal government. None referred to a chainsaw or a wood chipper — two of Musk’s go-to analogies — choosing instead to talk about the duplication they see in government software systems.
“We really believe that the government can have an Apple Store-like experience: beautifully designed, great user experience, modern systems,” said Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of Airbnb who is focused on overhauling the retirement system for federal workers.
Gebbia has a net worth of $8 billion, making him one of the 400 wealthiest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk is ranked first, with $337 billion.
DOGE staffers have generally kept a low profile, with news organizations relying sometimes on anonymous sources to compile lists of DOGE employees in defiance of threats by Musk.
But some of the staffers interviewed Thursday, including Tom Krause, had previously popped up in lawsuits challenging DOGE’s authority. In February, after a lawsuit by labor unions, the Trump administration agreed that Krause’s access to Treasury Department payment systems would be “read only,” without the authority to make changes.
Krause told Fox News’ Baier that he wants to be able to audit all the payments the government makes.
“What we’re doing is applying private company standards to the federal government,” he said.
The interview did not include some of the most-talked-about DOGE staffers, such as one 19-year-old who has gone by the nickname “Big Balls.”
All seven of the interviewed staffers are men, and they did not include Amy Gleason, the person whom the White House has said is the acting administrator of DOGE. Her name did not come up in the hour-long Fox News program, and Trump has repeatedly said that Musk is the head of DOGE.
All seven are also new to government work, with some of them including Steve Davis joining from Musk’s private companies. Davis has worked at Musk’s SpaceX and The Boring Co. and he has been an investor in Musk’s social media app, X.
Davis said the stakes for DOGE were high, arguing that the country was at risk of “going bankrupt.”
Another DOGE staffer, Anthony Armstrong, formerly a Morgan Stanley investment banker who worked on Musk’s deal to buy X, said in the interview that he did not believe the changes brought on by DOGE had been as radical as critics argue. He said that reductions-in-force, or firings, amounted to less than 0.15% of the federal workforce, and he said there was still money “sloshing out the door.”
The other DOGE staffers interviewed were Aram Moghaddassi, who specializes in the Social Security system, Brad Smith, who works with the Department of Health and Human Services, and Tyler Hassen, who’s assigned to the Interior Department.
Musk frequently chimed in as Baier questioned the seven DOGE staffers, generally to emphasize their points or rephrase their answers. Backing up Armstrong, Musk argued that, “Basically, almost no one’s gotten fired.”
Asked by Baier about rulings by several federal judges that DOGE had exceeded its legal authority, Musk went on the offensive and argued, without naming specifics, that the federal judges are corrupt.
Musk said he remained committed to DOGE’s goal of cutting the federal budget deficit by $1 trillion, though he reframed the goal in percentage terms, saying it would be a 15% reduction in spending. Musk also appeared to endorse sparing Social Security from cuts, saying that people who are “legitimate” beneficiaries would see their benefits go up, not down, although he did not define the term.
“We feel confident that a 15% reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services,” Musk said.
But budget experts say that even if DOGE succeeds at slashing spending, Trump’s policies including major tax cuts would still substantially add to the deficit if they came to fruition.
