Since billionaire Elon Musk joined forces with President Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), various Democrats and other critics have complained over the Tesla founder’s influence on the federal government.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, came to Musk and DOGE’s defense on “Kudlow” Wednesday.
“Elon Musk is the greatest entrepreneur of this generation,” Bessent told FOX Business host Larry Kudlow in his first interview since joining the Trump administration.
“DOGE is not going to fail. They are moving a lot of people’s cheese here in the capital, and when you hear this squawking, then some status quo interest is not happy,” he continued.
WHAT HAS DOGE CUT SO FAR?
Bessent’s defense comes after weekend reports claimed the Treasury Department granted DOGE personnel access to the federal government’s payment system. The Treasury spends roughly $6 trillion per year on payments for federal agencies.
Since then, a Treasury Department official told members of Congress on Tuesday that a tech executive working with DOGE, will have “read-only access” to the government’s payment system, stressing that it is committed to safeguarding the system after the department was granted access.
The official wrote a letter in response to lawmakers who were concerned that DOGE’s access to the government’s payment system for the federal government could lead to security risks or missed payments for various programs, including Social Security and Medicare.
“At the Treasury, our payment system is not being touched,” Bessent said Wednesday. “We process 1.3 billion payments a year. There is a study being done — can we have more accountability, more accuracy, more traceability that the money is going where it is. But in terms of payments being stopped, that is happening upstream at the department level.”
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The Treasury’s payments are managed by its Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which disburses nearly 90% of all federal payments and conducts more than 1.2 billion transactions per year, according to its website.
While lawmakers have expressed concerns that Musk possesses too much power within the U.S. government, Bessent emphasized the billionaire’s efforts are part of the Trump administration’s “mandate” from the American people.
“The U.S. doesn’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. I think we can up the revenues, we can up the growth, and most importantly, President Trump got elected because of this affordability crisis… What is he going to do for the affordability crisis? Real wage growth for working Americans is the best way to fix this,” Bessent said.
Bessent argued “gigantic government spending” fueled economic growth under the Biden administration but failed to bring about “real” wage growth.
In contrast, Bessent explained how the newly-elected Trump administration will tackle the affordability crisis by re-privatizing the economy, cutting taxes and regulations, addressing the growing deficit and boosting domestic energy production.
FOX Business’ Landon Mion and Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
