Elon Musk says DOGE was only “moderately successful” and he won’t do it again

Billionaire mega-billionaire Elon Musk, in a friendly interview with his aide and conservative influencer Katie Miller, said his efforts to lead the government’s Department of Efficiency were only “moderately successful” and he would not do so again.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who also owns the social media platform However, Musk bemoaned how difficult it would be to quickly reshape the federal government, and acknowledged how much his business had suffered due to his work at DOGE and his lack of popularity.

“We’ve been moderately successful,” he told Miller, who once served as a DOGE spokesman charged with selling the agency’s work to the public.

When Miller pressed Musk on whether he would do it again, he said, “I don’t think so. … Instead of doing DOGE, I would basically be building … and working on my companies.”

“They wouldn’t have burned the cars,” Musk added with great sadness – a reference to consumer protests against Tesla.

However, things have certainly changed for Musk since his departure from the Trump administration. Tesla shareholders have approved a pay package that could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

Musk was speaking as a guest on “Katie Miller’s Podcast,” which Miller, who is married to Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller, launched after leaving a government job to work for Musk in the private sector. The two sat in chairs facing each other for a conversation that lasted more than 50 minutes and spanned topics from DOGE to Musk’s thoughts on artificial intelligence, social media, conspiracy theories and fashion.

Miller did not press Musk about DOGE’s inner workings and the controversial way it has taken over federal agencies and data systems.

Musk credited the agency with saving up to $200 billion a year in “zombie payments” that he said could be avoided through better automated systems and federal payment tokenization. But that number is dwarfed by Musk’s ambitious one-time promise that the Efficiency Commission could measure savings in the trillions. Miller did not respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.