Niamh Shackleton
Elon Musk looked as if he was searching for the nearest exit while being grilled by David Pogue.
The Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder recently sat down with Pogue, best known for being a correspondent on CBS News Sunday Morning, to discuss many different topics, with DOGE being one of the main ones.
Addressing some of the criticism DOGE has had since its creation at the beginning of the year, Musk said that the agency 'became the whipping boy'.
"I've had some people think that DOGE is somehow going to stop them getting the social security check, which is completely untrue," he shared.
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Moving on to discuss the Trump administration, Musk admitted that he doesn't agree with everything it does.
"It's not like I agree with everything the administration does," he said. "I agree with much of what the administration does, but we have differences in opinion."
Musk didn't appear to want to share exactly what policies he disagrees with, however, particularly when it comes to Trump's tariffs and his plans to stop international students from studying at US colleges like Harvard.
Pogue asked the tech mogul: "All of your businesses contain a lot of parts; do the tariffs and the trade wars affect any of this?"
"Erm... you know. Tariffs always affect things a little bit." Musk replied.
Pogue then proceeded to press Musk about Trump's plans to ban international students from enrolling in US institutions, such as Harvard, which have been temporarily halted by a judge at the moment (via the BBC).
He noted that the South African-born businessman was once an international student himself. Musk had attended the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s.
Looking seemingly uncomfortable, he said: "I think we want to stick to the topic of today, which is spaceships as opposed to presidential policy."
The journalist went on to insist that he was told 'anything was good' to talk about. Musk laughed nervously and said: "Well... no."
Musk has stepped own as the head of DOGE since filming the interview. It's thought that some of the comments he made during his CBS News conversation may have contributed towards his decision to step away from government.
A teaser clip of the interview, which was fully released today (June 1), saw Musk say: "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill frankly, which increases the budget deficit not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.
"I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful... but I don't know if it could be both, my personal opinion."
Reportedly, this comment didn't go down well with Trump and his peers, and Musk ultimately stepped down as the head of DOGE.
Somewhat addressing this speculation, Musk said in his announcement that his 'scheduled time as a Special Government Employee' had come to end, implying that he was poised to leave the position soon anyway.