Trump announces Elon Musk will review the Pentagon budget with highly sensitive security powers

US President Donald Trump announced Friday that he has tasked Elon Musk, whom he appointed to head the Department of Government Efficiency, with conducting a review of the Defense Department’s spending, which has a proposed budget of $850 billion for the current year.

Asked if the defense sector was on Musk’s spending-cutting agenda, Trump told reporters at the White House, “I’ve directed him to go to education and to the Pentagon, which is the military, and as you know, unfortunately, you’re going to find very bad things”.

Trump said of Musk that he has a group of very qualified people who know what they are doing, while a young employee at the government efficiency department he runs resigned after his racist posts on X were exposed.

Asked about the limits of Musk’s authority, Trump alluded to highly sensitive security sectors.

The United States’ defense spending is the largest in the world, and the annual increase in the Pentagon’s budget is a consensus between Democrats and Republicans, given the great support of Americans for the armed forces.

On the other hand, Elon Musk’s practices have angered Democrats and have prompted legal action.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest man in the world, but he has been accused of abusive behavior, outside any legal framework and violating rules that protect public data.

He is the mastermind behind the closure of USAID.

Musk has a working relationship with the Pentagon, having signed huge contracts with the federal government, raising questions about a conflict of interest.