Elon Musk and DOGE team give behind the scenes look at their mission

Summary

Elon Musk and the DOGE team, alongside members of the Trump administration, are spearheading efforts to reform government spending and reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion. They plan to cut wasteful spending by 15% without affecting essential services and aim to create a more transparent and efficient government. Highlighted in their discussion are issues such as overpriced government contracts, outdated systems, and inefficiencies in critical agencies. Through their initiatives, they hope to enhance governmental operations and ensure accountability, ultimately securing benefits for American citizens.

Highlights

• Elon Musk is targeting a 15% reduction in government spending by tackling waste. 💪
• The DoGE (Deficit Government Efficiency) team is swiftly addressing inefficiencies. 🚀
• Billion-dollar overruns, like a costly simple survey, are being unveiled. 😲
• New systems are enabling real-time updates for public transparency on government spending. 🌐
• Outdated paper processes, like the retirement system, are being digitized for efficiency. 🗂

Key Takeaways

• Elon and DOGE team aim to cut the federal deficit by $1 trillion. 💸
• Government waste is being tackled with ambitious plans for transparency and efficiency. 🔍
• Outdated government systems are getting a Silicon Valley makeover. 💻
• Implementation of public company standards to improve financial management in the federal process. 📊
• Success hinges on collaboration with supportive administrations and a great team. 👥

Overview

In a candid interview, Elon Musk outlines an ambitious plan to cut government waste and fraud, targeting a gargantuan $1 trillion reduction in federal deficits. His tone, though serious about the issues, is laced with optimism as he describes the potential savings and systemic changes in operations he deems crucial to prevent a national fiscal crisis.

The DOGE team is treating the reform much like a tech revolution—rooting out inefficiencies via a thorough audit and updating outmoded systems. Government contracts under scrutiny and outdated procedures, like the paper-based retirement filings stored in Pennsylvania caves, are examples of inefficiencies they're overhauling. The team sees technology as the key to future-proofing government operations and ensuring accountability.

Though efforts like these face resistance and scrutiny, Musk and his allies believe that these reforms are patriotic necessities. The promise of a more fiscally responsible and efficient government is their vision—an endeavor that Musk suggests is closer to a national duty than a project. Despite challenges, the team is pressing on, confident in the beneficial impact for citizens and the nation's economic health.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The Introduction chapter focuses on the budgetary savings goals set by Elon. The aim is to significantly reduce the federal deficit by a trillion dollars, effectively halving it from 2 trillion to 1 trillion. Additionally, there is a goal to decrease total federal spending from 7 trillion to 6 trillion. This chapter sets the stage for discussing financial strategies and fiscal responsibilities.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Elon Musk on Budgetary Savings In this chapter titled 'Elon Musk on Budgetary Savings', Musk discusses the potential for reducing government spending by eliminating waste, targeting a 15% reduction in expenditure. He believes this goal is achievable without compromising essential government services, citing the government's inefficiency and the prevalence of waste and fraud. Musk shares his intention to engage with stakeholders to improve the situation and mentions a desire to uncover the most surprising insights from the process.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Addressing Government Waste The chapter titled 'Addressing Government Waste' highlights the astonishing level of waste in government spending. It provides a striking example where a simple 10-question survey, which could have been conducted using a basic survey tool like Survey Monkey for about $10,000, was absurdly billed at nearly a billion dollars by the government. This alarming example underscores the broader issue of inefficiency and wasteful expenditures within government operations.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Survey Costs and Government Role The chapter discusses the costs associated with conducting online surveys, specifically inquiring about opinions on national parks. It highlights a lack of feedback mechanisms in such surveys, meaning that results are not utilized effectively. Furthermore, it touches upon the role of government employees, with a specific scenario where an employee's term is 130 days and the aim is to significantly reduce the deficit, potentially by a trillion dollars, within that timeframe.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Process of Reducing Spending The chapter titled 'Process of Reducing Spending' discusses an ongoing effort to reduce waste and fraud by $4 billion each day. This initiative is described as being executed in real-time, with progress tracked daily. Despite facing criticism from opposition lawmakers and skeptics, the process aims at cutting waste efficiently. The speaker mentions that while they can provide specific details, critics label their approach as overly aggressive or resembling a 'fire'.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Criticism of the Approach In this chapter titled 'Criticism of the Approach,' the discussion centers on the criticism that the approach might be hasty or reckless, likened to 'shooting from the hip.' The response to this criticism emphasizes a careful and measured approach, similar to the adage 'measure twice, cut once,' highlighting the importance of thorough preparation and caution in decision-making. While acknowledging the possibility of errors, it is argued that the approach is far from impromptu or reckless.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Doge's Operational Challenges The chapter titled 'Doge's Operational Challenges' discusses the impossibility of achieving perfection, as no one can maintain a flawless track record, akin to a baseball player having a perfect batting average. The narrative emphasizes the importance of quickly correcting mistakes. It introduces Steve Davis, a former rocket scientist who now serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the company Doge, overseeing its daily operations as part of the team.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Steve Davis on Joining Doge Steve Davis discusses his motivations for joining "Doge." He highlights the inspiring goal of preventing the country from going bankrupt as a key reason for his involvement. Davis emphasizes that achieving financial stability for the country is a cause worth dedicating oneself to, and he believes there is a genuine opportunity for success.
• 05:30 - 06:30: Inspiration and Support for Doge The chapter 'Inspiration and Support for Doge' highlights the significant role of a supportive administration and an outstanding cabinet in achieving success. The text emphasizes the crucial contribution of President Trump and his selected cabinet to the potential success of Doge. It suggests that the success of Doge would not be possible without their backing, underlining the importance of having financial support to carry out the mission.
• 06:30 - 07:30: Transparency and Public Access The chapter discusses the importance of transparency and public access to governmental financial activities. It highlights that large sums of money, such as the $830 million online survey, can often go unnoticed without dedicated oversight teams like the Doge team working with various departments, in this example, the Department of Interior. To further enhance transparency, these financial activities are published on the Doge website, enabling the general public to access this information. This initiative allows anyone to log onto the website and view the payments, increasing government accountability.
• 07:30 - 08:00: Congressional Interaction The chapter "Congressional Interaction" discusses the importance of involving Congress in financial oversight and ensuring accountability in spending. The process seeks to keep Congress informed while adhering to laws that mandate correct and transparent use of funds, avoiding fraud and waste. The chapter further highlights congressional support in these processes.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Joe Gabia's Involvement The chapter titled 'Joe Gabia's Involvement' discusses political dynamics where members from different parties, including Democrats, occasionally collaborate across party lines. The main focus is on how opponents criticize certain actions as unconstitutional or illegal without specifying particular objections. It highlights a scenario where these accusations lack substantiation, as critics are unable to pinpoint specific issues. To counteract this, detailed cost-saving measures and related data are made publicly accessible on d.gov and through specific channels on X.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Reform of Retirement Processes The chapter discusses the involvement of prominent figures, including Elon Musk and Joe Gabia, in reforming retirement processes. Joe Gabia, co-founder of Airbnb, was approached by Anthony Elon to assist in addressing issues related to retirement in the government sector. Gabia, intrigued by the challenge, decided to join the effort to implement changes.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Arum Mandasi on Government IT The chapter discusses an antiquated government process involving a mine in Pennsylvania that stores all paper documents related to retirement processes. The mine contains 22,000 filing cabinets filled with 400 million pieces of paper, a practice that started in the 1950s and has remained unchanged for the last 70 years. The discovery involved finding retirement cases with an excessive amount of paper, requiring shipping pallets for transportation.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Social Security Fraud Issues The chapter discusses the current lengthy process of addressing Social Security fraud issues, which can take many months. The goal is to streamline this procedure into an online digital process that would only take a few days. This change is seen as necessary because the older system is outdated, being older than many civil servants and viewers. The proposed modernization aims to provide a user experience similar to that of an Apple Store, with beautifully designed and modern systems, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
• 12:00 - 14:00: Payment System and Treasury Issues The chapter discusses the manual and traditional process of retirement which involves handling physical paper and manilla envelopes. This cumbersome method limits the number of retirements to 8,000 per month. Even under normal circumstances, the retirement process can take anywhere from 6 to 9 months to complete. The inefficiency was highlighted when attempts to encourage voluntary retirement revealed these processing limitations.
• 14:00 - 15:30: Targeting Government Contracts The chapter 'Targeting Government Contracts' discusses the outdated processes involved in government retirement paperwork. It highlights how the procedures, astonishingly, have not changed since the 1950s, still being handled manually in a manner reminiscent of that era. Despite being aware of these inefficiencies, the transition to more modern systems seems to be a prolonged effort.
• 15:30 - 16:00: Fraud and Challenges in Administration The chapter titled 'Fraud and Challenges in Administration' highlights the cumbersome processes faced by federal workers, notably in retiring from government positions. It mentions the requirement for a training program to navigate retirement procedures. The chapter also introduces Arum Mandasi Doge, an engineer, who, along with other engineers, is involved in analyzing computer data sets within various agencies, reflecting an attempt to improve administrative processes.
• 16:00 - 18:00: Patriotic Duty and Motivation The chapter begins with an exploration of the host's excitement and motivation derived from learning about the outdated state of government computer systems. Government IT is estimated to cost about 100 billion dollars annually, with essential systems like Social Security and the IRS being over 50 years old, yet requiring significant funding.
• 18:00 - 18:30: Reforming Financial Operations The chapter titled 'Reforming Financial Operations' explores the challenges and delays associated with improving financial systems, specifically focusing on social security. The author, a software engineer, expresses a desire to make a difference in this area. Furthermore, the chapter touches on the controversy surrounding Elon Musk's alleged attempts to remove billions from Social Security, highlighting the political discourse from the Democratic perspective.
• 18:30 - 19:30: Pentagon Audit Issues In this chapter titled 'Pentagon Audit Issues', the focus is on the intentions of prominent figures like Elon Musk and President Trump to overhaul Social Security. The aim is described as a destructive one from within. The perspective shared contrasts with this notion, explaining efforts being made to improve Social Security instead. The improvements highlight protecting legitimate beneficiaries from daily fraud, aiming to safeguard those who rightfully deserve the benefits of the system.
• 19:30 - 20:30: Violence Against Tesla The chapter 'Violence Against Tesla' delves into the security challenges and operational hurdles facing Tesla, with a particular focus on fraudulent activities. It highlights how a significant percentage of communications, such as phone calls made to Social Security to change direct deposit information, are fraudulent. It emphasizes the substantial risk and prevalence of fraud, drawing a parallel to the broader challenges organizations like Tesla face in securing systems against similar threats. This context underscores the importance of robust security measures to protect company assets and customer information from potential fraudsters.
• 20:30 - 22:00: Propaganda and Misrepresentation The chapter titled 'Propaganda and Misrepresentation' discusses a common scam where individuals falsely claim to be retirees to manipulate Social Security systems. They deceive officials into redirecting funds to fraudsters, disrupting genuine beneficiaries from receiving their Social Security payments. This scenario highlights existing vulnerabilities in the Social Security system and raises concerns about its susceptibility to fraud. The chapter concludes by questioning how officials can assure the public that their benefits won't be negatively impacted amid these fraudulent activities.
• 22:00 - 23:30: Critique of Supporting Ukraine The chapter titled 'Critique of Supporting Ukraine' discusses the impact of ongoing efforts, highlighting that legitimate recipients will eventually receive increased Social Security benefits rather than reduced ones. The speaker stresses the positive outcomes of the initiatives undertaken by a group referred to as 'Doge', and insists that this will benefit legitimate people. They also urge for future verification of these outcomes, indicating confidence that the predictions will be proven accurate, specifically in the context of discussions around Social Security.
• 23:30 - 24:30: Conclusion and Future Outlook The chapter discusses the repeated crashes of the Administration website, which have occurred four times in 10 days due to server overloads. These issues have prevented millions of retirees and disabled veterans from accessing their online accounts, causing significant concern among users. The chapter assures that measures will be taken to ensure the website remains online in the future. It acknowledges the massive challenges faced by the social security system, highlighted by having over 15 issues.

Elon Musk and DOGE team give behind the scenes look at their mission Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 thanks for having us and doing this uh I know there's a lot of interest in this you know first let me start with you Elon what are what are the budgetary savings goals and and how much do you think you've achieved so far our our goal is to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars um so it from a nominal deficit of 2 trillion to try to cut the deficit in half to 1 trillion um or looked at it in total federal spending to drop the federal spending from 7 trillion to Six Trillion we want to
• 00:30 - 01:00 reduce the spending by eliminating waste and for reduce the spending by 15% which seems really quite achievable uh the government is not not efficient um and there's a lot of a lot of waste and fraud so we feel confident that a 15% reduction can uh can be done without affecting any of of the critical government services I'm going to talk to all the guys making it better going talk to all the guys here about the specifics but for you what's the most astonishing thing you found out in this process uh
• 01:00 - 01:30 the sheer amount of waste Andro in the government it is astonishing it's mind-blowing uh just uh we routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars or more casually um you know for example like the the simp the simple survey uh that was uh literally 10 question survey that you could do with Survey Monkey C about $10,000 uh was the government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that for just the service a billion
• 01:30 - 02:00 dollars for for a simple online survey do you like the national park and then there appear to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey so the survey would just go nothing is that contain you technically are a special government employee and you're supposed to be 130 days are you going to continue past that or do you think that's the what you're going to do or well I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame so in that time frame days and and the
• 02:00 - 02:30 process is a report at some point at 100 days or uh not really a report we we are cutting the waste in Fr in real time so every day that that passes uh our goal is to reduce the the waste and frud by $4 billion a day every day s days a week and so far we are succeeding and I'm going to talk of the specifics but there there obviously are Doge critics who are reading all kinds of stuff U obviously lawmakers on the other side of the aisle are attacking you uh and he they characterize the approach is this fire
• 02:30 - 03:00 ready and then aim and how do you approach that how do you respond to that well I I do agree that we actually want to be careful in the cuts so we want to measure twice if not Thrice and cut once um and uh actually that is that is our approach uh they may characterize it as uh shooting from the hip but it is anything but that uh which does not say that we make we don't make mistakes if
• 03:00 - 03:30 we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all that would be like saying um someone in baseball's got a bad a thousand that's impossible um so when we do make mistakes we correct them quickly um and we we move on some people say this shouldn't take a rocket scientist uh Steve Davis you are a rocket scientist used to be yeah and now essentially you're the Chief Operating Officer of Doge um day-to-day operations fair to say um yeah part part of the do team
• 03:30 - 04:00 what so how did you end up here what's the biggest challenge you see um the reason I'm here which is probably for many is that I think the goal is incredibly inspiring I think most of the taxpayers in the country would agree that in order to have the the country going bankrupt would be a very bad thing and therefore the country going not bankrupt is a good thing um that all of us are willing to kind of put our lives on hold in order to do I think the thing that's special right now is we actually believe there's a chance to succeed um that there's an
• 04:00 - 04:30 Administration that's supportive um and a great cabinet and just a great group that will actually make success a possible outcome and I think that's given the inspiring Mission and given the uh non-zero chance of success it it was worth doing I just like to sort of reemphasize that point the the success of Doge is only possible with President Trump and with the outstanding cabinet that he selected it would be impossible without the support of the president and the cabinet but you're finding the the money I mean it's big numbers right yeah
• 04:30 - 05:00 like Yan said um the minimum impulse bit is often a billion dollars so for example the $830 million um which was the online survey that's an enormous amount of money that wouldn't have been found if the Doge team wasn't working with it in that case the department of interior but then taking it one step further Doge then publish publishes these things on our website for maximum transparency so now the general public it would have been impossible for the general public to have seen that now anyone can just log into doe.gov anytime and see these payments as they're not
• 05:00 - 05:30 yet in real time they're close but they'll probably be in real time within the next few weeks but the process still involves Congress right at some level we try to keep Congress as informed as possible but uh it the law does say that money needs to be spent uh correctly it should not be spent fraudulently or wastefully it's not contrary to Congress to avoid waste and fraud it is consistent with the law and consistent with Congress and we've seen actually great support at least from the side of
• 05:30 - 06:00 of the house and occasionally some Democrats too you know it's nice to see people cross the aisle once in a while um but uh usually when they attack those they never attack any of the specifics so they'll say what we're doing is somehow unconstitutional or legal or whatever we're like well which line of the cost savings do you disagree with and they can't point to any and we list them all on on d.gov and and the Doge had hand on X and you'll
• 06:00 - 06:30 see just outrageous things one outrageous thing after another Joe gabia um besides uh Elon you're one of several billionaires here co-founder of Airbnb um and you wanted to help out I bumped into Anthony Elon probably back in February and they told me something about a a mine that was dealt with retirement and they said they needed somebody to help out to fix retirement in the government um I uh I loveed the challenge so I jumped on board
• 06:30 - 07:00 and it turns out there is actually a mine in Pennsylvania uh that houses every paper document for the retirement process in the government now picture this this this giant cave has 22,000 filing cabinets stacked 10 high to house 400 million pieces of paper uh it's a process that started in the 1950s and largely hasn't changed in the last 70 years and so as he dug into it we found uh retirement cases that had so much paper they had to fit it on a shipping p
• 07:00 - 07:30 so uh the process takes many months and we're going to make it just many days will it be digitized or how absolutely so this will be an online digital process that will take just a few days at most and I really think you know it's an injustice to civil servants who are subjected to these processes that are older than the age of half the people watching your show tonight so we really believe that the government can have an Apple Store like experience beautifully designed great user experience modern systems because
• 07:30 - 08:00 right now it's by hand yes the the retirement process is all by paper literally with people carrying paper and manilla envelopes in into this gigantic mine so they can't retire more than a certain number every month about 8,000 a month that that's how we the reason we discovered it was we were saying like well let's encourage voluntary re retirement they said well the most you could they could do is 8,000 a month um and and even uh I don't normal circumstances it can take 6 to 9 months
• 08:00 - 08:30 just to just to have your retirement paperwork processed and they often get the calculations wrong so we're like well why would it take so long to retire and they're like well because of the mine they're like what do you mean a mine what's a mine got to do with retiring and that's where we discovered the that that uh all the retirement stuff is done by still done by paper in a process that looks identical to what occurred in the 1950s like you took a snapshot of the mine when it first start in the 50s to today it looks the same it's amazing so how long do you think it'll take to turn over uh we're working
• 08:30 - 09:00 as fast as we can uh probably next couple months we'll have this this overhauled and you know I really think again like why are we subjecting our federal workers to processes that they actually have to go through a training just to retire from the government there's a whole training program that people have to go through in order to retire I think we can do better for them arum mandasi Doge engineer uh you go into these places one of the more than a dozen Engineers first people to go into the agencies and view view the computer data sets tell me what
• 09:00 - 09:30 you're finding and for people who don't understand how that process works explain it for them yeah um I'll say the first thing that got me really excited about Doge was learning um basically the state of government computers um by some estimates government it cost about hundred billion do and uh it's funding systems that are over 50 years old in the case of something like Social Security or the IRS so really critical systems are are old they cost a lot of
• 09:30 - 10:00 money to maintain and um they can be the the efforts to improve them are often very delayed so I thought I'm a software engineer um that that maybe could make a difference here and um that's that's really what inspired me at a high level there's a lot of mystery about social security and a lot of words about it from here's what Democrats have been saying about it it's absurd that Elon Musk is trying to eliminate billions of dollars from Social Security
• 10:00 - 10:30 Elon Musk and president Trump have set their sights on cutting Social Security their goal is clear destroy Social Security from within you're in the building I mean you're in the computers what's happening there what are you doing yeah it doesn't line up with my experience on the ground and I'll say the two improvements that we're trying to make to Social Security are um helping people that legitimately get benefits protect them from fraud um that they experience every day on a
• 10:30 - 11:00 routine basis and also make the experience better and I'll give you one one example is at Social Security um one of the first things we learned is that they get phone calls every day of people trying to change direct deposit information so when you want to change your bank account you can call Social Security um we learned 40% of the phone calls that they get are from fraudsters 40% that's right almost half yes and and they steal people so Social Security is
• 11:00 - 11:30 what happens is they they call in they say they claim to be uh a retiree um then they and they convince the post the Social Security post on the phone to change the where the where the money is Flowing it it actually goes to some fraudster this this happening all day every day and and then and then somebody doesn't receive their social security it's because of of all the the fraud loopholes in the Social Security System how do you reassure people that what you all are doing is not going to affect their benefit benefits No in fact what
• 11:30 - 12:00 what we're doing will help their benefits legitimate people as a result of the work of Doge will receive more Social Security not less I want to emphasize that as a result of the work of Doge legitimate uh recipients of Social Security will receive more money not less money all right I emphasize that point and and and and let the record show that I said this and the it will be proven out to be true let's let's check back on this in the future so Washington post the Social Security
• 12:00 - 12:30 Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded blocking millions of retirees and disabled veterans from logging into their online accounts freaked people out is it is that going to change yes we're going to make sure that the website stays online yeah I mean but is it a result of going in there something you're doing it's no no the um the amount of issues that were with the social security system are enormous as an example there are over 15
• 12:30 - 13:00 million people that are over the age of 120 that are marked as alive in the social security system and that's an accurate figure correct 15 minutes correct this has been something that's been identified as a problem again pre-existing problems since 2008 at least from an IG report so there were some great people working at the Social Security Administration Social Security Administration that found this 2008 and nothing was done and so 15 to 20 million Social Security numbers that were clearly fraudulent um were floating
• 13:00 - 13:30 around um that can be used only for bad intentions there'd be no way to use those for Good Intentions and so what one of the things the Doge team is doing is carefully and and very methodically looking at those and making sure that any fraudulent ones are eliminated Brad Smith uh working at HHS um and obviously another element is Medicare and Medicaid ni IH uh what are you finding yeah well I'd say there's a couple things we're really committed to in our work at HHS
• 13:30 - 14:00 number one making sure we continue to have the best biomed research in the world and number two making sure which president Trump has said over and over again that we 100% protect Medicare and Medicaid but there's a lot of opportunity so if I take NIH as an example today if you're an NIH researcher and you get a $100 Grant at your University today you get to spend 60 of that and your University spends 40 of that the policy that we're proposing to make is that you get to spend 85 of that and your University spends 15 so that's more money going directly to the scientists who are discovering new cures
• 14:00 - 14:30 another example at NIH is today they have 27 different centers they got created over time by Congress and they're typically by disease state or body system there's 700 different it systems today at NIH 700 different it system It software systems they can't speak to each other they don't talk to they have 27 different cios and so when you think about making great medical discoveries you have to connect the data time out time out you see 27 different Chief Information officers correct correct and most of people are
• 14:30 - 15:00 non-technical so there's a lot there there there's a lot of opportunity it will make science better not worse and when I say that uh our job is tech support I really mean it yeah we have to fix the computers if the computers can't talk to each other you can't get research done if the computers uh can't go stay online people won't receive their social security so what we have here are a bunch of failing computer systems that are preventing people from receiving their benefits that are preventing people from preventing resour from happening um that are uh extremely
• 15:00 - 15:30 vulnerable to fraud um and we're fixing it and does that include AI does that include kind of changing the system overall that's I guess what people are afraid of is they don't know what this is all looking like and is it going to affect me in the long term it's going to affect them it's going to affect people very positively so the changes that we're doing here uh will ensure the solvency of the American government of the American of the United States of America this is what this is what we're trying
• 15:30 - 16:00 to do is ensure that uh people do receive their benefits in the future um and you can only receive your benefits if the the country is operating in a in a healthy and competent way up next how the Doge team plans to streamline some federal jobs and agencies and later Elon Musk answers some of your questions that you asked via [Music] X Anthony Armstrong um Doge office of personnel management uh Morgan Stanley
• 16:00 - 16:30 Banker m&a guy uh you know money and this is a lot of money sloshing around there's a lot of money sloshing around uh there's a lot of money sloshing out the door and if you look at the federal government and the way the workforce works it's really a one-way ratchet over decades it's only going up it's only going up you never you never take it away so that leaves you with duplicative functions it leaves you with overstaffing and it leaves you with functions in the wrong places so a couple of examples uh duplicative function Brad mentioned 27 cios if you had kept
• 16:30 - 17:00 going with Brad he probably he would talk about the Communications office I think you've got 40 40 distinct Communications offices in in HHS right yeah 40 um yeah yeah and that's not unusual by by the way and multiple offices like that not making anyone healthy this is not about the employees there there's many many hardworking well-meaning people who who took these jobs these these jobs were out there they applied for them they took them they're doing what's there it's just that they're duplicating the effort of 40 offices so you've got that you've got
• 17:00 - 17:30 overstaffing a good example of overstaffing would be the IRS has got 1,400 people who are dedicated to provisioning laptops and and cell phones so if you join the IRS you get a laptop and a cell phone you're provisioned so if each of those IRS officers or employees provisioned two employees per day you could provision the entire IRS in a little more than a month so 12 times a year you do make any sense why would you have 1400 people who whose only job it is to give out a laptop a phone right the whole IRS could be
• 17:30 - 18:00 handled once a month so that doesn't that doesn't make any sense and president Trump's been very clear scalp will not hatch it and that's the way it's it's getting done and then once those decisions are made there's a very heavy focus on being generous being caring being compassionate and treating everyone with dign and respect and and if you look at how people have started to leave the government it is largely through voluntary means there's
• 18:00 - 18:30 voluntary early retirement there's voluntary separation payments we put in place deferred resignation the 8-month severance program so there's a very heavy bias towards programs that are long-dated that are generous that allow people to exit and go and get a new job in the private sector and you you've heard a lot of me a lot of news about riffs about people getting fired at at this moment in time uh less than 0.15 not 1.5 less
• 18:30 - 19:00 than 0.15 of the federal Workforce has actually been given a riff notice so so they've selected if they're Le it is basically almost no one's gotten fired that's what we're saying Tom CR uh working at treasury you are having access to the payment system oversees all the outgoing payments essentially those payments were going places we didn't know where they were going right yeah unfortunately that's the case BR um you know as an ex CFO of a big public
• 19:00 - 19:30 tech company um really what we're doing is we're applying public company standards to the federal government and it is alarming how the financial operations and financial management is set up today there is actually really only one bank account that's used to disperse all monies that go out of the federal government time out One bank account it's a big one it's a big one it's a big one it's a big one um couple weeks ago it had $800 billion than it but it's the
• 19:30 - 20:00 the treasury general account so when you hear you know some of my colleagues here what they're talking about in terms of the fraud you have to ask well why is this allowed to happen at a financial level well it's actually quite simple but alarming the treasury up until now and thanks to president Trump uh we're fixing this in fact there's an executive order that he just signed uh the other day which is protecting America's bank account because it really is the taxpayer of money you know one we're changing the culture the culture is is
• 20:00 - 20:30 been not a lot of caring and not a lot of commitment to doing what's right relative to financial operations there's a $500 billion do of fraud every year there's hundreds of billion dollars of improper payments and we can't pass an audit the the Consolidated financial report is produced by Treasury and we cannot pass it on we have material weaknesses what that means is that if I was a public company CFO I would effectively be removed I couldn't file financial statements I couldn't issue ities of course we depend on can't pass
• 20:30 - 21:00 an right the federal government cannot pass an AIT it's impossible in fact um um the the in order to pass an audit you need the information necessary to pass an audit um you need to have the payment codes you need to have the payment explanation and you need to have a person you can contact to understand why that payment was made none of those things were mandatory yeah until until just recently just a few weeks ago in fact maybe last week yeah we're serving 580 plus agencies and up until very recently ly effectively they could say
• 21:00 - 21:30 make the payment and treasury just sent it out as fast as possible no verification and so what we're doing is what any household would do but imagine you're a household you have a bank account everyone has the ATM card connected to that account everyone has a checkbook that account it's not just your children it's not just your parents it's your in-laws it's your extended family and they all can go to the account and disperse funds no questions asked no justification no verification up next the Doge team targets government
• 21:30 - 22:00 contracts and we'll show you what they're finding Tyler uh Hassen uh Interior Department uh you're a for former Oil Company CEO um you're reviewing contracts before they're approved for funding what what are you finding well um Elon and Steve kind of stole my thunder a little bit but I actually found that customer service survey contract I actually have an example of one right here I could have done this in high school and that
• 22:00 - 22:30 right I I found it that bad I found it on the weekends because under the Biden Administration there was no departmental oversight within the department of interior whatsoever none we are now reviewing every single contract every single Grant and when things come to my attention that don't make sense I'm bringing him to secretary beram and he has been fantastic he's he's a businessman he's very supportive of Doge it's been wonderful to work with him is the back battle between government of
• 22:30 - 23:00 Decades of Decades of buildup and business which you guys are is that like a train hitting each other I mean it it seems like um it's pretty disruptive well this is a revolution um and I think it it might be the might be the biggest revolution in government since the original Revolution um but at the end of the day America is going to be in much better shape uh America will be solvent uh the critical programs that people depend upon will work and and it's going to be a
• 23:00 - 23:30 fantastic future and but are we going to get a lot of complaints along the way absolutely you know one of the things I learned at PayPal was the you know who complains the loudest and the with the the most amount of fake righteous indignation the fraudsters that's it's a tell ngos that are crazy like the the $2 billion the Stacy AB NGO that basically didn't exist and suddenly gets $2 billion awarded from the federal government she say why and there are many cases like that I think that most people Common Sense wise
• 23:30 - 24:00 would say the Fraud's got to end they're concerned about the 9 four-year-old mother who Skips a check or somehow doesn't get what she's supposed to get right and what we're trying to say is actually that that the 94-year-old uh grandmother is is actually as a result of Jo doa's work going to get her check she's not going to be robbed by fraud like she's getting robbed today um and the solvency uh of the of the federal govern government will ensure that she continues to receive those Social
• 24:00 - 24:30 Security checks that Medicare continues to work um without which we're all doomed and the reason we're doing this is because if if we don't do it America's going to go insolvent we're going to go bankrupt and nobody's going to get anything why are you guys all doing it I mean you can pipe up but it you don't have to be here right I mean you don't you don't have to be doing this I have four bless with four children my wife and I um but we have a
• 24:30 - 25:00 real fiscal crisis and and this is not sustainable and what's worse back to my children and everyone else's children is we are burdening them with that debt and it's only going to grow Ste there's not a lot of hierarchy here you guys are kind of all approaching it in different you know silos but uh with the same kind of goal right I mean this is really Silicon Valley private sector colliding with government yeah exactly we're headed in a bad path but that the chance
• 25:00 - 25:30 of success exists and just the one that just is in my head right now which is a fairly mundane one but I think is very illustrative is credit cards um oh yeah there are in in the federal government um around 4.6 million credit cards for around 2.3 to 2.4 million employees um this doesn't make sense right um and so one of the things all the teams have have worked on is we've worked with the agencies and said do you need all of these credit cards are they
• 25:30 - 26:00 being used can you tell us physically where they are I hope they're getting frequent fly um actually on a different note the rewards program the federal government has is actually not very good compared that's a whole other it's a negotiation sry yeah exactly um but so far the teams have worked together and they've reduced it from 4.6 million to um to 4.3 million so we're we're we're taking it easy but clearly there should not be you know more there should not be more credit cards than there are people yeah Joe middle level employees are they
• 26:00 - 26:30 seeing a benefit to being empowered by taking out bureaucracy I mean absolutely I mean I think what you're seeing is taking the best of Silicon Valley in the business world and bringing it into the government we're bringing the best practices and the best methodologies um and uh people are inspired right especially uh on the retirement process which I can speak to um they've been trying to modernize and get off of paper since early 2000s um very successfully every attempt has gone over budget um
• 26:30 - 27:00 and been cancelled uh uh because it hasn't been successful and so you know I showed up and I feel like I'm here because it's an interesting problem we can use design to solve it and good engineering and really create a better experience for everybody we're talking about elementary Financial controls that are necessary for any company to function so like if if these if if the peral government uh if if a commercial company operated the way the paral government then it would be uh go immediately go
• 27:00 - 27:30 bankrupt uh it would be delisted the officers would be arrested the changes we're putting in place will enable the federal government to pass an ordit it will en enable taxpayers to know where the money is going and know that their hard-earned tax tax dollars are being spent well the ways that the government is defrauded is that the computer systems don't talk to each other so if the computer system systems don't talk to each other then it you can you can exploit that Gap and fors is a exploit that exploit that Gap take advantage um
• 27:30 - 28:00 you for example there were over $300 million of small business administration loans that has been given out to people under the age of 11 well actually to add to it's 300 million under the age of 11 and over 300 million to over the age of 120 definitely small business loans correct yes the oldest American is 114 so it's safe to say if their age is uh 115 or above uh they're they're fake um or they should be in the book called World Records um and we we should not be
• 28:00 - 28:30 giving out um loans to babies so uh the the youngest uh recipient of a small business administration loan uh is a 9-month year old which is a very very cautious baby we're talking about here um so obviously it was just fraudulent um and what they and they do terrible things they actually will see that a kid's been born they will steal that kid's social security number and then take out a loan and and leave that kid with a with a bad credit rating there was literally a baby the Terrible Things are being done is what we're saying and
• 28:30 - 29:00 we're stopping these terrible things and you can stop it I mean we are stopping the reason this is happening is because the the two systems are not talking to each other right and so you don't know at the small business administration that you're giving a loan to a 9-month-old which happened in one case because you're not cross referencing that with the Social Security Administration data that has birth dates so that very very simple fix eliminates tremendous R and and that there are multiple systems across the government where the systems are not speaking with
• 29:00 - 29:30 one another and if you just solve that simple problem you would solve a huge amount of fraud are you one of the way like one one of the the key tricks that the fraudes pull is that they will use the fact that someone is marked as live and as as sort of just that that social security number is marked as live in Social Security and then uh then get disability and unemployment insurance for a dead person because the databases don't talk to each other all they got was from Social Security is like is this
• 29:30 - 30:00 person alive yes they're not they're not alive it's falsely Mark person is falsely marked as alive in Social Security uh but they didn't but but that person a fraud C can now get unemployment and disability from a dead person this is happening all the time at scale are you surprised at some of the legal efforts and some of the judges that have weighed in there's about eight or 10 now um of these cases that are at least temporary holds they're being challenged by the doj right um are you
• 30:00 - 30:30 surprised by that push back well it's the the DC circuit is notorious for having a a very far-left blindness um and when you look at uh the people close to some of these judges who who who are where are they working oh they're working at these NOS oh they're getting them they're the ones getting this money does that seem like uh A system that lacks corruption it sounds like corruption to me last thing do you guys all see this as a patriotic duty is that
• 30:30 - 31:00 really what this is about it's essential I do 100% I I um was running five businesses in Houston and and I left that I left great people to do this and uh my wonderful wife said go for it and here I am but I I feel like this is me giving back to the country if if we don't do this we're sunk uh the ship unless unless this exercise is successful the ship of America will sink that's why we're doing it well gentlemen I really appreciate the time uh today
• 31:00 - 31:30 and uh hopefully it took some of the myth and mystery out of Doge and what's happening behind the scenes thank you we asked on Ax your platform for some for some questions and uh here is uh C Sperling uh he writes are they happy with the speed at which they're making changes are there any changes they would like to make but haven't yet well I I think in the context of the government we're moving like lightning um in the context of what I'm used to moving it's
• 31:30 - 32:00 slower than I'd like um so uh what what seems like uh incredibly fast action by government standards is uh it's slower than I'd like to be totally Frank but what we all making solid progress um uh a very sort of thorny problem a tough problem really it's kind of like painful homework frankly is reconciling all of the government databases to eliminate the waste and fraud um these databases don't talk to each other um
• 32:00 - 32:30 and that's really uh the source of of uh that's the biggest vulnerability for fraud is is the the fact that these databases don't talk to each other so we need to reconcile databases uh it's a frankly painful homework but it has to be done um and will uh greatly improve the efficiency of the government systems we didn't talk about any plans to approach cuts at the Pentagon you're in there you know the Pentagon has not passed an audit in a very long time um I mean it's crazy as it sounds they will lose 20 $30 billion a year and they
• 32:30 - 33:00 don't know where they literally don't know where it went um I mean Senator Collins was telling me about how she uh gave the Navy $112 billion for extra submarines got zero extra submarines and then when she held a hearing said where' the12 billion go they didn't know talking to those guys and you have a a great team from all over the country um you don't have to be here you don't have to be here you know there's 's now been these many cases of violence and
• 33:00 - 33:30 vandalism at Tesla uh dealerships how does that affect your employees your customers what does it mean to you like how have you taken that in well I think I think a great wrong is being done to the people of Tesla and to our customers I Tesla is a peace peaceful company that has made uh Great Cars Great products that's all it's done hasn't harmed anyone um and yet people are committing violence they're firebombing pz dealerships they're shooting guns into Stores um they're
• 33:30 - 34:00 threatening people they're you know they issuing death threats against me and and and another Tesla Personnel um what are they doing this for why and and what's happening it seems to me is they're being fed propaganda by the farle um and they believe it uh it's really unfortunate um but the the real problem is not are not the people it's it's not like the the you know the crazy guy that that firebombs a
• 34:00 - 34:30 Tesla dealership it's the people pushing the propaganda that that that caused that guy to do it um th those are the real villains here and we're going to go after them and the president's made it clear we're going to go after them the ones providing the money the ones pushing the lies and propaganda we're going after them and it's been this Evolution I mean the last Administration was going to
• 34:30 - 35:00 mandate electric vehicles and now you see on the far left uh some efforts to go after electric vehicles it's quite something it is ironic I mean it seems like the most ironic outcome is the most likely um but yeah I mean personally it's got to take a toll it does yeah uh it does um I think there's some real evil out there um and uh we have to overcome it I
• 35:00 - 35:30 mean you have been called a Nazi a white supremacist a fascist um I mean they've got the sort of their noral yeah I mean they've still got it they haven't I guess they still need to call me Stalin musini um you know whatever G KH or or whatever um I mean they've called the president all these things I think one point there was a magazine cover which which said the president was worse than the Pres president Trump was worse than Hitler musolini and Stalin
• 35:30 - 36:00 combined the president hasn't killed anyone he hasn't started any wars in fact he's he he's good at stopping Wars um so this is obviously they're pushing the these lies and why do they push these lies and and I think that we need to hold people responsible for pushing these lies because those lies almost got the president killed what's something that people want to know about the president you're pretty close to him now you spend a lot of time with them what's something that
• 36:00 - 36:30 people wouldn't know I think the president is a good man uh I I think he is an honest man um and and I I have yet to see him do anything mean uh or anything uh that is wrong that I would say morally wrong not even once you know a lot is coming your way uh but sometimes you say stuff or post stuff that gets attention um you give it out in other words uh Democratic Arizona Senator Mark Kelly posted on X about his
• 36:30 - 37:00 trip to Ukraine to push for continuing to send us weapons and support there and you posted that he was a traiter why do that well I think uh somebody should be should care about the interests of the United States above the interests of another country and if they don't they're a traitor yeah but he's a decorated veteran a former astronaut a sitting US senator that doesn't mean uh he's it's okay for him to put the interest of another country above
• 37:00 - 37:30 America obviously there are some Republicans who think supporting Ukraine is the right thing still but there is a battle back and forth about how that how do you think it comes to an end um well I think there will be a negotiated piece uh and the thing that we should be concerned about is we should have empathy for the thousands of people that are dying every day in trenches for or no movement in the in the lines so the the borders remain the
• 37:30 - 38:00 same for the past 2 years thousands of people have died every every week uh for nothing for what um and I I I take great great offense uh at those who uh those who put the appearance of goodness over the reality of it those who virtue signal and say oh we can't give in to Russia but have no solution to stopping thousands of kids dying
• 38:00 - 38:30 every day they just want that to continue forever have contempt for such people I don't want to make that clear yeah so you because they're virtue signaling and they're their lack of a solution means that kids don't have a father it means that parents lost a son for what nothing so you're optimistic that the president plan might work the the president plan
• 38:30 - 39:00 is the only thing that will work hey Sean Hannity here hey click here to subscribe to Fox News YouTube page and catch our hottest interviews and most compelling analysis you will not get it anywhere else