Elon Musk listens to U.S. President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 11, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Donald Trump said he told his Cabinet secretaries during a meeting Thursday that staffing decisions will be left up to them, not Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump said he instructed Cabinet members to work alongside DOGE on spending and workforce reductions while clarifying that final job cuts will be at the discretion of the department leaders.
“We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one,” Trump said on Truth Social. “It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people.”
“As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet,'” Trump added.
The sweeping cuts carried out by DOGE have led to lawsuits, voter anxiety and heightened concerns from congressional Republicans.
Trump’s message was also a rare public curtailing of Musk’s authority as he moves to help reshape the federal government, at times stepping on the Cabinet secretaries’ toes.
Several members of Trump’s Cabinet bristled when Musk recently ordered federal employees to outline their work or face termination, with multiple agencies and departments initially fending off the effort.
At the same time, Trump also praised Musk and DOGE after Thursday’s meeting.
“I think they’ve done an amazing job,” he told reporters.
Musk called the meeting “very productive” in a post on X. It was his second time attending a Trump Cabinet meeting; he dominated the first gathering last month when he called DOGE a “support function” to help the federal agencies “find 15% reduction in fraud and waste.”
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that his directive to his Cabinet members was: “Keep all the people you want, all the people that you need.”
But he also indicated that Musk would step in if the department heads don’t make sufficient cuts.
“If they can cut, it’s better. If they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting,” Trump said.
Trump and Musk have sought to drastically cut the size of the federal workforce, firing thousands of employees and moving to shutter entire agencies.
The speed and intensity of the cuts have roiled some Republican members of Congress and sparked calls for greater transparency into DOGE’s work, particularly after some lawmakers faced fierce backlash from people at town halls in their districts.
Musk met with Senate Republicans for nearly two hours behind closed doors Wednesday to address their concerns over potential voter backlash to the cuts.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., organized the lunch meeting after several Republican senators raised concerns to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles last month about being uninformed on DOGE’s work.
Musk also met with House Republicans on Wednesday, later telling reporters that he spoke about the “opportunity to improve expenditures in the government.”