President Donald Trump said he told his cabinet secretaries during a Thursday meeting that personnel decisions will be left, not Elon Musk and his government efficiency department.
Trump said he instructed the members of the Cabinet to work with Dogs on spending and reductions in the workforce, while clarifying that final employment cuts will be at the discretion of department leaders.
“We just met with most secretaries, Elon and others, and it was very positive,” Trump said in Truth Social. “It is very important that we reduce the levels where they should be, but it is also important to keep the best and most productive people.”
“As the secretaries learn and understand, people who work for the various departments can be very precise about who will remain and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ instead of the ‘ax’,” Trump added.
The sweep cuts made by Doge have led to demands, anxiety of the voters and greater concerns of the Republicans of the Congress.
Trump’s message was also a rare public reduction of Musk’s authority as it moves to help remodel the federal government, sometimes stepping on the fingers of the fingers of the cabinet secretaries.
Several members of the Trump cabinet bristled when Musk recently ordered federal employees to describe their work or the termination of the face, with multiple agencies and departments initially defending the effort.
At the same time, Trump also praised Musk and Dogs after Thursday’s meeting.
“I think they have done incredible job,” he told reporters.
Musk described the “very productive” meeting in a publication on X. It was his second time to attend a Trump cabinet meeting; He dominated the first meeting last month when he called Doge a “support function” to help federal agencies “find a 15% reduction in fraud and waste.”
Trump told journalists in the Oval office on Thursday that his directive for the members of his cabinet was: “Keep all the people you want, all the people you need.”
But he also indicated that Musk would intervene if the department heads do not make enough cuts.
“If they can cut, it is better. If they don’t cut, Elon will cut,” Trump said.
Trump and Musk have tried to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce, shooting thousands of employees and moving to obtain entire agencies.
The speed and intensity of the cuts have embrupped some republican members of the Congress and caused calls to greater transparency in Doge’s work, particularly after some legislators faced a fierce reaction of people in the municipalities of their districts.
Musk met with the Senate Republicans for almost two hours behind the doors closed on Wednesday to address their concerns about the possible reaction of voters to the cuts.
Senator Rick Scott, Republican of F-Fla., Organized the lunch meeting after several Republican senators expressed concern to the Chief of Cabinet of the White House, Susie Wiles, last month about not being informed in Doge’s work.
Musk also met with the Republicans of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, and then told reporters that he talked about the “opportunity to improve government expenses.”
