US President Donald Trump has defended his decision to give billionaire businessman Elon Musk a key role in his administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), amid criticism over the freeze in funding for USAID, which has affected foreign aid programs around the world.
Trump restricted the work of the United States Agency for International Development when he ordered a 90-day spending freeze on January 24. The decision affected many businesses and nonprofits in Ukraine, which are now struggling. It also affected aid programs for people in Afghanistan.
This decision also resonated in Kosovo, where USAID says it has invested more than $1 billion in Kosovo's development since 1999.
Trump and Musk commented on the decision during their first joint television interview, which aired on February 18 on Fox News, a conservative American media outlet. Trump said he made the decision to freeze USAID funding because his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, had spent too much, including on foreign aid that, according to him, did not serve US interests and had increased the deficit.
Since 2022, USAID has provided billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance, development support, and direct budget assistance to Ukraine. Musk and Trump were not asked about the suspension of aid to Ukraine programs during the interview or about Trump's diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
The interview focused more on Trump's relationship with Musk, the richest man in the world, and the reasons why he chose him to run DOGE.
“I know a lot of businessmen, and they’re not necessarily good people,” Trump said. Musk is a great person who “wants to see the country move forward,” Trump told Fox News interviewer Sean Hannity, who is a friend of the president.
Trump said that DOGE has fought waste, fraud, and abuse in government, already saving millions of dollars for American taxpayers.
Since Trump returned to the presidency on Jan. 20, DOGE has been moving from department to department, laying off or furloughing thousands of government employees in a major shakeup of the federal administration designed to cut costs and streamline it. A list of the programs that have been identified, some costing hundreds of millions of dollars, was shown on screen during the joint interview.
Musk said he took on the role to reduce bureaucracy and prevent the United States from going bankrupt.
"The goal is to cut a trillion dollars from the deficit," Musk said, claiming that Trump "found the deficit at two trillion when he took office."
Musk said the average American taxpayer should be "furious" at how their money has been spent.
He said that some of the people on his DOGE team, which has been heavily criticized by Democrats for actions they say are illegal, are federal employees. Others are software engineers who could earn salaries in the millions but have chosen to work for him instead.
President Trump said Musk was simply implementing his executive orders and promised that traditional programs like Social Security and the government-funded health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, "will not be affected."
However, the arrival of DOGE employees this week at the Social Security Administration led to the immediate resignation of its head due to an apparent clash with Musk’s cost-cutting team. Other top federal officials have resigned when confronted with DOGE’s drastic approach to federal spending.
Trump also said Musk has not asked for any favors for his companies - specifically SpaceX, which has numerous contracts with the US government, and Tesla, which has benefited from US subsidies to promote electric cars.
Musk said he would recuse himself from any decision-making if he were ever faced with a situation involving his businesses, and Trump added: "If there's any conflict, he won't be involved."
Musk told Hannity that he has paid a price for his support of Trump, but that he intends to continue.
"I'm a technologist and I try to create technologies that help people and improve the world," Musk said.
Trump said he has always respected Musk, but his admiration for him grew when he offered the use of Starlink communications satellites to people in North Carolina whose communities were devastated by a hurricane last year.
His admiration grew even more when SpaceX managed to return a rocket to Earth and catch it in the air "like a beautiful little baby," and he decided he wanted her on his team./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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