Musk goes behind-the-scenes at DOGE, unveils biggest source of fraud

Daily News Article   —   Posted on March 11, 2025

(Fox Business) – In an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Larry Kudlow on Monday, Elon Musk – the face of Tesla, SpaceX and now the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – gave a behind-the-scenes look at how his team operates and identifies government spending waste and fraud.

DOGE was created by President Donald Trump through an executive order he signed on Inauguration Day. Under the order, DOGE will be a temporary organization within the White House that will spend 18 months until July 4, 2026, carrying out its mission of cutting trillions of dollars (of waste, fraud and abuse) from government spending.

“Frankly, I can’t believe I’m here doing this. It’s kind of bizarre. But I kind of think that we’ve got this enormous federal budget deficit, and it’s a $2 trillion deficit. It keeps growing. Our interest payments are higher than our Defense Department budget. [That], I think, was the real wake-up call for me,” Musk said.

“If we didn’t do something about this, then there won’t be any money for anything. We’ll just be servicing debt,” he continued. “Really, I just don’t want America to go bankrupt.”

Watch the full interview and then answer the questions below:


Questions

1. Larry Kudlow of Fox Business News begins his interview with Elon Musk by asking about the cyberattack on X. Where are the IP addresses originating from that conducted the massive cyberattack trying to bring down the X system on Monday?

2. What actions have protesters, supposedly opposed to the actions of DOGE, taken against Mr. Musk's Tesla business?

3. How does Elon respond to Mr. Kudlow's question about Tesla?

4. a) What does Musk point out about the inspector general's reports and the GAO (Government Accountability Office) reports about fraud last year?

b) He then explains what they are trying to do - and how they are trying to stop money being spent "on what I think very few taxpayers would agree make sense." What examples does he give of questionable spending?

5. Mr. Kudlow asks: "And what is it that makes you choose the Treasury or Social Security or USAID (to audit)? What is Musk's response?

6. What does Mr. Musk say is one of the biggest sources of fraud in the world?

7. How does Musk respond to people who criticize the work of DOGE? (see approximately minute 5:15)

8. At approximately minute 6:30 Mr. Kudlow notes: "So you're not changing policy - you're auditing the fiscal mechanisms to make sure that point A gets to point B ... you're not changing laws you're just doing what any business would do in a profit and loss audit."

Mr. Musk replies "What we're adding here is caring and competence. There's a massive amount of fraud of people submitting social security #s for social security benefits - unemployment, Small Business Administration loans and medical where those are fake social security numbers or they have stolen somebody'e else's social security # and we're trying to put a stop to that and that's the number is 10% of all federal expenditures which is half a trillion dollars."
What is your reaction to this?

9. Which one of the following 3 quotes by Elon Musk from his interview with Larry Kudlow had you heard/read in the news since DOGE first launched? Why do you think this is so?

  • "DOGE is trying to act broadly across all the departments, it's not just one department at a time. We are trying to make the government more efficient across the board."
  • “They try their best to thwart Presidential policy. If the President cannot get things implemented as a reflection of the will of the people, then what we have is not a Democracy, we have a Bureaucracy. Rule of the bureau, not rule of the people.”
  • “Money from FEMA.. was being sent to pay for luxury hotels in New York for illegal immigrants… The Democrats are trying to import voters… that’s also why there’s no Voter ID..”

10. What information from the interview was most surprising to you? Explain your answer.