‘My mind is a storm,’ the special government employee and technologist said.
OXON HILL, Md.—In a wide-ranging interview with NewsMax host Rob Schmitt, technologist and special government employee Elon Musk offered insights into what drives him.
Musk was announced on the day of his appearance on Feb. 20, the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland near Washington, D.C.
Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a temporary advisory body on a time limit that is housed in President Donald Trump’s executive order, as it targets what it calls waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending for possible cuts.
It opened with a visual representation of cuts: just after Musk appeared on stage, Argentinian President Javier Milei came on stage and handed the sunglasses-wearing tech entrepreneur a chainsaw, which he used to promote his goals of slashing government waste during his candidacy for president.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!” Musk said, holding the tool aloft.
When Schmitt asked what it is like inside his head, the special government employee and technologist said: “My mind is a storm.”
Speaking to a receptive audience of conservatives—mostly American, though with a large international contingent—Musk related details of his childhood in South Africa, saying he had been steeped in American culture from a young age despite his physical distance from the country.
“I read comic books, and I played Dungeons and Dragons,” he said—the latter drawing a cheer from the crowd.
“America cared about being the good guys,” Musk told Schmitt. “That’s actually pretty unusual.
“You want to be on the side of good.”
Musk’s work on DOGE, which has reported $55 billion in savings to date, has been championed by many Republicans, including those on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.
At its first hearing on Feb. 12, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) drew attention to a $2.7 trillion estimate of improper government payments since 2003, a number furnished by the Government Accountability Office.
“We are uncovering what could be the biggest money laundering scandal in American history,” he said.
DOGE has faced opposition from many Democrats as well as a number of lawsuits. Some recent litigation has targeted DOGE’s access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data in the Treasury Department.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) told reporters on Feb. 18 that the Trump administration’s government downsizing efforts, including some that affected Pennsylvania, were “about chaos.”
“You’re not going to ever ultimately vote for chaos, and the party that becomes perceived as the party of chaos—that’s why they lose. And I think that’s part of what happened to us in ’24,” Fetterman said, referring to the electoral losses among Democrats.
During their Feb. 20 conversation, Musk and Schmitt touched on DOGE targets.
The DOGE leader suggested he would be prepared to audit the Federal Reserve—an oft-mentioned goal of the central banking system’s critics over the years.