Elon Musk Says Congress Needs to Act on DOGE’s Savings Goal

The Tesla CEO said DOGE only works in an advisory role.

Elon Musk looks on during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington on March 24, 2025. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Tesla CEO and presidential adviser Elon Musk said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has no power to initiate major government spending cuts and that Congress needs to act.

“I am certainly an adviser. I don’t have formal power, and that’s it. The president can choose to accept my advice or not. And that’s how it goes,” he said during remarks at an economic forum in Qatar on Tuesday.

Musk reiterated that DOGE has limited power to make cuts and that it merely works in an advisory capacity.

“We’re not the dictators of the government. We are the advisers. And so we can advise, and the progress we’ve made thus far, I think, is incredible,” the Tesla CEO told the forum.

“The DOGE team has done incredible work, but the magnitude of the savings is proportionate to the support we get from Congress and from the executive branch of the government in general.”

So far, DOGE, as of this week, has cut $170 billion in government spending, according to its website. Previously, Musk had said he wanted to slash trillions of dollars in spending by the time DOGE is scheduled to end on July 4, 2026, although he revised his own projections in January before the Trump administration took office.

Referencing the original $2 trillion original cost-cutting goal, Musk said on Tuesday that other branches of the government may not want that and “are, to some degree, opposed to that level of cost savings.”

He said that DOGE’s work has gone well so far.

“I don’t think any advisory group has done better in the history of advisory groups for the government,” he said.

Since it was established in January by President Donald Trump, DOGE has moved from agency to agency and recommended cuts to various programs and staffing. However, some of the task force’s progress has been stymied by federal courts, with some judges issuing orders blocking its access to multiple agencies such as the Treasury Department, Social Security Administration, and others.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that DOGE cannot take over the U.S. Institute of Peace and said it had unlawfully removed the agency’s head earlier this year. The judge said the institute isn’t an agency within the federal government and was created by Congress as an independent body.

Last week, the administration submitted a court filing to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow DOGE to gain access to Social Security records after lower courts ruled against those efforts.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in a new filing that seeks to allow DOGE access to the agency that lower courts have engaged in overreach and have attempted to insert themselves into “the human resources department for the Executive Branch.”

Last month, Musk told Tesla investors on a call about the electric car company’s lower-than-expected earnings that he would step away from his government role later in May. Musk is also a special government employee, meaning he can serve in his government role for no more than 130 days.

On Tuesday, Musk also referred to protests, acts of violence, and arson attacks targeting Tesla and Tesla owners. He said that “massive violence” was threatened against him and his companies.

“We are coming for those who organized the violence [and] death threats against Tesla,” he also said in a post on X, adding in the forum interview that some of those perpetrators will “go to prison.”