Carlos Barria/REUTERS
- Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is now criticizing Elon Musk's rapid federal worker cuts.Lutnick told Axios that Musk got the DOGE cuts "backward."Lutnick recruited Musk to be in charge of DOGE and tasked him with cutting $1 trillion.
Elon Musk's former ally in the White House is putting distance between them.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who worked closely with Musk during the Tesla CEO's time as the face of the Department of Government Efficiency, expressed disapproval toward how Musk handled firings at DOGE.
In an interview with "The Axios Show" that aired on Friday, Lutnick told show host Mike Allen that Musk approached DOGE in the same way he approached Twitter, now X, where he rapidly cut 80% of staff, and that Musk "thought that example worked for government."
"I thought Elon got caught up in other people's objectives," Lutnick said. "Right, I mean, the people work at the government fine, the government could be 10% smaller, I'm sure it could be 15% smaller, and let the cabinet secretaries go in, study their place, and make the proper cuts."
Lutnick said that the government spending could have been slashed and pointed to a Biden-era program that gave $7.4 billion to a private nonprofit to research semiconductors. He said this was an example of what he would call "waste, fraud, and abuse."
"You know how many people would equal $7.4 billion? Come on, the focus should have been on cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse — and the people you could do over time," said Lutnick. "I thought he got that backward."
Musk used to be a close White House aide before his public fallout with the president. Since then, Lutnick's sentiments toward Musk seem to have shifted.
Earlier this year, Lutnick said on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime" that he was the one who "set up" Musk with the job after flying to Texas to meet the Tesla CEO in October 2024. There, they reached an agreement that Musk would cut "$1 trillion of waste, fraud, and abuse," Lutnick said.
"So he's going to cut $1 trillion, and then we get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we are going to raise $1 trillion of revenue," Lutnick told Watters on February 19. "And our objective under Donald Trump is to balance this budget, and I'm telling you, you watch, we are going to do it."
In March, NBC host Kristen Welker asked Lutnick on air, "Who is in charge of your agency, you or Elon Musk?" Lutnick responded that he had "the greatest businessman and greatest technologist in the world" as his "partner."
"You gotta ask me, what do I think?" Lutnick said. "Thank God I would have Elon Musk come and help me."
Musk fired at least 200,000 federal workers during his time with DOGE, and management experts have widely criticized his methodology.
The Department of Commerce and spokespeople for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
