Musk: 'DOGE Is a Way of Life'

The similarities between Elon Musk and Buddha may not be striking, but the billionaire made the comparison when discussing the future of DOGE with reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism," he said. "Buddha isn't alive anymore. You wouldn't ask the question: 'Who would lead Buddhism?'"

• In a talk that Axios describes as having the feel of "a de-facto exit interview" as Musk prepares to spend more time with his companies, Musk said DOGE has "made progress," but acknowledged it hasn't been as effective as he would have liked. He said it has cut around $160 billion from government spending, a long way short of his initial $2 trillion goal. He likened the cost-cutting effort to those of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, saying, "We're basically Democrats from the 1990s who got teleported into 2025."
• Musk said he will "return to primarily running my companies, which do need me," but he will continue to spend one or two days a week working with DOGE.

• He said that there was room for more cuts, but there had been resistance even from inside Trump's administration, Axios reports. "How much pain is the Cabinet and Congress willing to take? It can be done. But it requires dealing with a lot of complaints," he said.
• "It is funny that we've got DOGE. Doesn't the absurdity of that seem like a weird simulation? It was a memecoin at one point," he said, per the Washington Post. "How did we get here?" he said. "Doesn't it seem absurd?"
• Musk said his "good friend" President Trump had invited him to stay in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom on more than one occasion, NBC News reports. "He'll actually call late at night and say, 'Oh, by the way, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen,'" Musk said. " I mean, don't tell RFK," he joked.
• Musk said he plans to keep his "comically tiny" office in the West Wing. "It has a view of nothing," he said. "It has a window but all you see is the HVAC unit, which is fine. It makes it harder to shoot me, I guess. There's not a good line of sight."

(More Elon Musk stories.)