Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Walden, and if you're new here, this is a
show all about Elon Musk and his groundbreaking work that he's
doing with his various companies, including Tesla,
SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and of course, X.
And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share a
quick insight from our shows analytics.
It turns out the 45% of you listening right now are
subscribed to the show. And thank you for that.
But that means that 55% of you are not.
So I'm offering you a deal. I promise to do everything in my
power to keep bringing you the latest and most interesting news
about Elon Musk every single day and about his companies.
If you'll do me one favor and hit the subscribe or follow
button on your podcast platform right now, that's it.
Pretty simple and straightforward.
It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference
for the show. Much of it's been
misinformation, and I'd like to address some of that and the
importance of this effort here in the next few minutes.
We had a very informative meeting with Mr. Musk and his
team about the work they're doing on behalf of the American
people. I first met Elon Musk maybe 15
years ago when he came to my office and said he had a new
company called SpaceX and he wanted to be able to compete
with other companies that had all of the NASA contracts for
space for space. And I guess looking back on it,
that was quite a long time ago, but it see how far SpaceX has
come, which now carries the vast majority of payloads into space
for the United States government and for the private sector.
Interestingly, and to the point of the Department of Government
Efficiency, Mr. Musk had to sue the federal government in order
to compete, which tells you a lot about the problems that the
federal government has that is not open to competition, and
thus creates a lot of the problems now that I think the
Department of Government Efficiency is now looking at.
But in addition to all that, Mister Musk has now moved, his
moved personally and his family and his businesses to Texas.
So I'm happy to have him as a constituent.
And he's creating a lot of jobs in my state, everywhere from
Boca Chica, South Texas, and Cameron County, which is now, I
think, officially renamed Star Base.
And the Tesla Gigafactory, which is right outside of Austin,
which I visited a few months ago with Mr. Musk.
Starlink, obviously providing Internet access to people in
remote parts of the planet that would never hope to have that
access. All sorts of interesting things
that he's involved in. And certainly I think we can all
acknowledge whether you like Mr. Musk and what he's doing or you
don't like it, he's obviously a brilliant individual and
certainly among the most brilliant people I, I know.
So you have to ask yourself, why would a guy, maybe one of the
richest, maybe the richest human being on the planet do what he
is doing for the US government? I think that's an important
question asked. Certainly he's not doing it for
the money. He's certainly not doing it for
the glory. Because all of the you can,
anytime you start messing with the status quo here in
Washington, DC, you can be assured you will become a
target. You will be criticized, you'll
be demagogued against, you'll be lied about.
It's just goes with the territory and something I'm sure
that he has not necessarily experienced before.
And frankly, I'm glad he's willing to put up with all of
that in order to do some important things.
What, of course the Department of Government efficiency is
focused on. Is efficiency something that we
can we purport and claim to be focused on here in Washington?
Waste, abuse and fraud. But we talk about it a lot, but
that's basically what we end up doing is talking about it and
not doing much, if anything about it.
Right now, the US national debt that's like our credit card sits
at over $36.4 trillion. Now.
I'm sure that the American people, certainly it's true in
my case, can't really get your head around how much money that
really is. To me, one of the most telling
indications of how big a number that is, is we're now spending
more money on interest, on our national debt than we are on our
defense, which is the most fundamental and important role
that the federal government plays.
I know sometimes when you have such a big number or a big
challenge or big problem, it's easy to say, well, it's just too
hard. We can't do anything about it.
And in the case of politicians, some may say, and I bet there
are more than a few who say, well, it's too politically risky
to try to deal with the status quo because I'm sure they're
going to be some sacred cows or some pet projects that
individual members of Congress or maybe constituent groups or
special interest groups want to preserve.
And so they don't want you looking at that.
They don't want you disrupting the status quo.
But as we, the reality is, and as we heard from President Trump
last night, as well as news reports, there are many examples
of outrageous expenditures of taxpayer dollars that need to be
exposed and they need to be addressed.
And there's no time. We have to start somewhere.
And I would submit that there's no time like the president.
Well, if you spoke to someone struggling with a substance
abuse problem, an addiction, you would never say to that person,
well, the situation with your addiction is just so bad that
it's hopeless. It's simply too hard to change.
There's nothing you can do. Well, the truth is, Washington,
DC is addicted to spending and has been for a long, long time.
And we have no responsible choice but to address it.
So I'm glad that Mister Musk and his team has stepped up.
And while DOGE may not erase that national debt overnight,
they are certainly highlighting the problems that that those
taxpayer expenditures present. And I think this effort will be
part of the answer to how we get back on track and correct our
fiscal challenges here in our country.
Now, of course, there are many in Washington who want nothing
to change. I think we saw some of them last
night sitting on their hands during the president's State of
the Union speech. They like the way things are.
They like the status quo. As a result, there's been a lot
of wailing and gnashing of teeth and frankly, dissemination of a
lot of erroneous information, again, which is just simply not
reality. Now, some in the media have
created, for their own reasons, misperceptions that Mister Musk
and his team are going in and making personnel and financial
decisions on their own or forcing these decisions on the
respective agencies that they are researching.
But that's simply false. Let me say that again.
Some may have the perception that Mister Musk and the
Department of Government Efficiency team are themselves
making personnel or financial decisions on their own.
That's false. The reality is that those
working for the Department of Government Efficiency are doing
so in compliance with the law. Each agency's DOGE employees
have gone through the Presidential Personnel Office
onboarding process. They have appropriate security
clearances and are direct contract employees of these
agencies. And they must abide by the same
guidelines and rules as other employees to ensure the
protection of sensitive information.
The reality on the ground is that DOGE employees are
reviewing systems, processes, data, personnel and making
recommendations. Recommendations to the agency
heads, then the agency head. In the case, most cases, a
Cabinet member appointed by President Trump and confirmed by
the Senate is the one with the authority to make those
discretionary calls. Now, of course, this is a
tremendous, it is a tremendous project, as I indicated earlier,
to reform our government's giant bureaucracy.
And with any undertaking of this size, it's a given that there
will be some trial and error, some mistakes that are made, but
hopefully those that can be readily addressed once pointed
out. And the administration has made
those course corrections and they can, should continue to do
so and I believe will do so. But there's much to be hopeful
about. One example that Doge
identified, and it is just to me a symptom of the problem, is
reforming software licenses and subscriptions.
We were told at the meeting at the White House with Mr. Musk
and the Department of Government Efficiency that some agencies
are finding out that they're paying for as many as 37,000
software licenses, but only about 10,000 employees are
responsible for functions that require those licenses, 37,000
licenses, but only 10,000 arguably would be required.
Now think about what this means for a minute.
And again, this is just a symptom, I think, of a larger
problem. This means taxpayers are paying
for a lot of licenses, software licenses that are sitting around
and are not being used. Imagine if a private company
let's something like this go unaddressed.
So of course they wouldn't, because if they did, they
eventually would go out of business.
They'd go bankrupt and cease to exist.
But the federal government doesn't work that way.
Some of these things that Mister Musk and his team are finding
should be an embarrassment. I can tell you that my
constituents back in Texas are paying close attention and
mainly like what they see. But the perennial problem is
that the federal government just is very slow to change.
And part of that has to do with the incentives that exists in
the private sector that don't exist in the public sector.
As I indicated, a private business couldn't do what the
federal government does, or they'd go belly up.
This is part of the reason that our national debt has been
growing by leaps and bounds without any credible effort by
the Congress or the federal government to change.
And change we must. It's unsustainable.
Now here in Congress, we have a certain amount of accountability
because we run for election. We have to stand for re
election. Our constituents get to vote for
us or against us. And we naturally want to be
responsive to what our constituents are telling us.
There's always sensitivity, for example, and what we spend in
our offices, we take great care, I bet to a person not to waste
the taxpayers dime. Now, that's the sort of
accountability that democracy provides.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
But when you look at the bureaucracy, a word that
literally means rule by the desk, there's no such
incentives. There's no accountability.
Until now. So to have someone like Elon
Musk and Doge come in and shake things up is just exactly what
Washington needs. And again, it should be no
surprise to any of us that there's some folks here in the
in town who don't like what they see.
There are many people who want nothing to change, and we're
definitely hearing a lot of speculation in addition to the
misinformation about where what this means and where it will
ultimately lead. But many of these stories have
turned out to be nothing more than that, stories.
We know there's always been waste, fraud and abuse within
the government, but it does not have to be that way.
The problem is big, but it's our job as elected members of
Congress working as part of the federal government, working for
the American people, not to ignore it, not to to give pretty
speeches talking about how bad the problem is.
But actually our job is to do something about it.
And that's why I appreciate what the Department of Government
Efficiency and the Trump administration are doing.
I truly believe this is a once in a generation opportunity to
actually get our fiscal house in order.
This is not easy. If it were easy, we would have
done it before. This is hard, it's politically
risky, but it's absolutely critical that we do so.
If we look at what the voters told us on November the 5th of
last year, we saw an overwhelming desire of the
American people to change the direction of the country.
They gave President Trump and us a mandate for change.
And I think what Doge is doing, along with the Trump
administration is very much in line with the mandate that we
got from the voters on November the 5th.
So I support the efforts that the Department of Government
Efficiency are undertaking. And I look forward to continuing
to work with Mr. Musk and President Trump as a member of
the Senate caucus on for for DOGE, the Department of
Government Efficiency so that we can get our nation's fiscal
trajectory back on track. It's absolutely essential that
we do so. Mr. President, I yield the
floor. I would note the absence of a
quorum. Hey, thank you so much for
listening today. I really do appreciate your
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