WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet secretaries for the first meeting of his new term on Wednesday, gathering agency leaders who are working to implement his agenda at a spitfire pace — and the billionaire adviser whose work on Trump’s behalf is touching all of their agencies.
The group, which included nominees who haven’t yet been confirmed, was joined by Elon Musk, whose early actions to reshape the federal bureaucracy have stoked rancor and unease among government employees, as well as early murmurs of concern among some Republicans in Congress.
“He’s sacrificing a lot,” Trump said as he introduced Musk. “He’s getting a lot of praise, I’ll tell you, but he’s also getting hit.”
Musk’s efforts have prompted resistance from some Cabinet secretaries, including several who recently instructed staff to put aside a directive coming from Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency that required a five-point response to the question, “What did you do last week?”
After the instruction landed in federal inboxes over the weekend, department and agency directors for the Justice, Defense and State Departments and the FBI began fending off the push, despite Trump and Musk’s suggestions that those who didn’t respond risked being fired.
Yet Trump’s first Cabinet meeting outlined the hierarchy in his administration, with many of his Senate-confirmed department heads spending an hour as audience members after the president gave the floor to Musk at the top of the meeting.
Trump’s secretaries watched as Musk, standing at the edge of a long table, explained DOGE and its work as “a support function for the president and for the agencies and departments to help achieve those savings to effectively find 15% reduction in fraud and waste.”
“And we bring the receipts,” Musk added. He argued the efforts were a necessary check on federal spending and a deficit he said the country could not sustain.
The Saturday night email, Musk insisted, was simply a “pulse check,” not a performance review. Still, he conceded, DOGE “will make mistakes.”
Invited to ask questions of Musk, one reporter wondered why Trump had felt the need early Wednesday to declare that his Cabinet stood behind his cost-cutting ally. Had Musk heard anything about members of the Cabinet who weren’t pleased with his directives?
“ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!”
“Is anybody unhappy?” Trump asked the room, which broke out in applause. “I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled.”
Musk praised the assembled secretaries as “literally the best.”
While not a member of Trump’s Cabinet, Musk has been near omnipresent by the president’s side since he was elected last year, appearing frequently with him at the new president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where he joined meetings with senior advisers and other leaders. The close relationship between the two now appears as strong as ever, with Trump describing Musk’s demand as “genius” during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron and saying employees who did not respond to the weekend email would be “semi-fired” or “fired.”
Trump later called the order from Musk “somewhat voluntary,” after Musk on Monday insisted that a non-response could lead to “termination.”
The meeting on Wednesday threatened to showcase a potentially fraught dynamic between the leaders of Trump’s government agencies and the billionaire tycoon looking to make major cuts to their staff. Until this weekend, the leaders had embraced Musk’s directives publicly. But Trump, who has praised Musk’s tactics, maintained on Wednesday morning that each voice in his Cabinet remains aligned behind Musk.
Defending Musk’s email throughout the meeting, Trump indicated that federal workers who failed to respond could lose their jobs.
“Those people are on the bubble, as they say,” Trump said. “You know, maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they’re not where they’re supposed to be.”
Later, he added, “it’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired.”
During the meeting, Trump took questions from reporters, saying of Ukraine that his presidency could halt Russian President Vladimir Putin, who “wanted the whole thing.”
And Trump railed against the Biden administration’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, musing about how China had taken over a former U.S. air base after the U.S. exit and how he wanted to “get back” military equipment abandoned by American forces. Trump added that he was not surprised Russia invaded Ukraine amid the fallout.
“In all fairness to Putin, when he saw that, he said, Well, this is our time to go, and go into Ukraine, I guess,” Trump said.
