Elon Musk holds first X Spaces for his D.O.G.E, shares plan to terminate USAID and others

Elon Musk’s 50-minute X Spaces session Monday morning didn’t disappoint—he came with a plan, a purpose, and Trump’s approval.

Speaking alongside Republican senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee, and former D.O.G.E co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon shared more of his drastic plans to slash federal spending and regulations.

His top priority now is shutting down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and taking control of government payment systems through D.O.G.E, the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Wholesale spring cleaning of regulation” is what Elon called it. He didn’t hold back. USAID, in his view, is broken beyond repair, and his mission is simple: shut it down, merge whatever’s useful into the State Department, and move on.

“It’s not an apple with a worm in it,” Elon said. “It’s a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing.”

Elon Says USAID shutdown has Trump’s full support

During the Spaces session, Elon explained that he’d discussed shutting down USAID directly with Donald Trump. “I actually checked with him a few times—‘Are you sure?’ Like, ‘yes,’ so we’re shutting it down,” the Tesla CEO said.

President Trump himself confirmed this in a statement to reporters on Sunday night, saying Elon had his “full confidence” and described him as “a smart guy, very smart, and very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”

Over the weekend, Elon’s D.O.G.E team fired key officials at USAID, accessed Treasury payment systems, and froze billions of dollars in foreign aid coordinated by the agency.

USAID’s website went offline globally as the Trump administration ordered a full review of US foreign aid. Elon said, “If we really need it again, we’ll just build something better.”

Humanitarian projects in Africa and Ukraine are reportedly affected by this the most, with many officials suspended and programs halted. The executive order that made D.O.G.E official, signed by Trump on Jan. 21, has already frozen billions in assistance and led to a reevaluation of long-term commitments to health, disaster relief, and infrastructure projects.

Elon also agreed with Senator Joni Ernst’s suggestion to absorb whatever’s left of USAID under the State Department umbrella. “It makes sense,” Elon said. “There’s no need for it to be a separate agency.”

D.O.G.E expands control as Elon blames fraudulent payments

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly granted full access to Elon’s team on Friday, according to Senator Ron Wyden. “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors—including those competing directly with Elon’s own companies—all of it,” Wyden warned on BlueSky, a decentralized rival to Elon’s X.

Elon wasn’t worried. In fact, he argued the access was necessary because Treasury officials had been approving fraudulent payments for years. “The D.O.G.E team discovered that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed to always approve payments—even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career,” Elon said during the session and later posted on X.

David Lebryk, the Treasury’s most senior career official in charge of these payment systems, resigned last week as Elon’s team gained control. Elon has been targeting officials responsible for overseeing payments and firing those who, in his words, failed to do their job.

He specifically called out payments from the Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a charity supporting refugees, as an example of mismanaged funds. “Those payments are done,” Elon said.

Treasury’s Do-Not-Pay system, designed to block illegal payments, has clearly failed, according to Elon. He described it as another broken government mechanism that needed cleaning up. “We found things that are beyond belief,” Elon added.

The eccentric billionaire admitted that not everyone would be happy about these changes, and that’s where the courts come in.

With six of the nine justices nominated by Republican presidents—and three by Trump himself—Elon believes that: “This is our shot. This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have.”

Elon is taking his D.O.G.E vision beyond Washington and into Wall Street. He announced plans to meet with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to pitch his cost-cutting agenda to the bond market. Rising Treasury yields have been a major concern for investors since the US election, driven by fears over inflation and widening deficits. Elon sees his spending cuts as the perfect solution for all that.

Any sign of serious deficit reduction could trigger a drop in Treasury yields, which would be a win for bond bulls betting on lower yields. Elon said this meeting with Dimon is critical to convincing markets that D.O.G.E’s plan is credible. “We need them to see this as a positive step,” Elon explained in the session.

Trump’s support gives Elon a safety net, but he knows the backlash will continue. Elon ended the session by calling on supporters to back D.O.G.E’s “noble goal.”

“DOGE will win if millions of people support it,” Elon said. “I wouldn’t even know how they supported it, but the fact that they did.”

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