A shocking report has 'revealed' just what White House staff really think of Elon Musk.
It's no secret that the Tesla and SpaceX boss isn't particularly popular with the general public, nor the federal workforce.
Agitation for the billionaire businessman has been boiling over ever since he declared himself Donald Trump's 'First Buddy' and was picked to head the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – and with unnerving enthusiasm.
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Since January, Musk has brought Tesla Cybertrucks to the White House front lawn and at one point sported a literal chainsaw as a metaphor for his unapologetic approach, which has slashed budgets, axed jobs and, according to a new report, severed friendships.
A new bombshell report by The Atlantic based on the confessions of 14 anonymous White House confidants has lifted the lid on just what those in the upper order of the Trump administration really think of him.
Here's everything of note:
Musk's clash with Scott Bessent
"F*** you!", rang through the West Wing last month, not once but three times, and apparently within earshot of the POTUS himself.
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Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, launched his expletive-filled rant after Musk picked a new IRS leader behind his back.
However, the report reveals the feud was just one of many between Musk and Trump's top dogs.
The ultimatum email
In February, Musk pinged off an email to the entire federal workforce one weekend with the demand to list five tasks they'd completed that week - or don't bother coming to work.
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“How many people were fired because they didn’t send in their three things a week or whatever the f*** it was?” an anonymous Trump adviser told the outlet. “I think that everyone is ready to move on from this part of the administration.”
'Chaos' in workforce cuts
High up on the list of Musk's most unpopular moves has been his efforts to slash the federal workforce as well as grants, contracts and leases, which he claimed saved $170 billion.
However, that figure has shifted due to program reinstatements and errors, The Atlantic adds, and while the 4.5-million-strong workforce has been chiselled down by tens of thousands, some of those too are up in the air because of court orders.
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According to one adviser, Musk performed the cuts in a 'haphazard' way that caused chaos.
It was possibly all for nothing too, or at least very little, as it's now transpired that Musk failed to find anything close to the 13-figure saving he'd initially promised.
The 53-year-old appeared to admit this when his revised goal of $1 trillion, down from the $2 trillion target, was proving 'really, really difficult' to meet.
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"It’s not easy," he added. "This is—this is a way to make a lot of enemies and not that many friends.”
Questions over actual efficiency
Ayushi Roy, a former technologist at the General Services Administration, suggested that while Musk did cut the workforce - and traumatized those who have managed to cling on - he didn't make anything more efficient.
She said: “I am waiting for them to actually deliver something. Right now they have just been deleting things. They haven’t added any value.
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“If it is just us hatcheting things instead of improving or even replacing them, the goal, to me, is not actually about improving efficiency.”
'Silicon Valley mindset'
Matt Calkins, the CEO of a Virginia-based software company, Appian, who has also worked within the federal government for more than 20 years, said Musk's downfall has been approaching the task with the wrong mindset.
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“He comes in with his idealism and his Silicon Valley playbook, and a few interesting things happened. Does the ‘move fast and break things’ model work in Washington? Not really," Calkins said.
'Killing children' in cuts to foreign aid
Although it was actually fellow billionaire and philanthropist, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, who publicly condemned Musk as 'the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children,' the tech mogul faced severe backlash when DOGE axed foreign aid.
Musk said USAID (United States Agency for International Development), that has been the largest humanitarian operator around the globe, was a 'criminal organization' and that it was 'time for it to die'.
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In line with this assault, DOGE also cut The Inter-American Foundation, an independent US foreign assistance agency, from 48 employees to the 'statutory minimum' of just one.
Apparently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wasn't happy with the dissolution of foreign aid or the cut back to the Inter-American Foundation.
The Atlantic reports Musk had challenged Rubio for not reducing his staff - and the statesman stood his ground.
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“That was one of the turning points for Trump and Marco, where Trump realized Marco had a little spine,” a Trump ally said.
'Ambush' of concerns from veterans to aviation safety
At one point, Musk was reportedly 'ambushed' by Rubio as well as Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
According to the report, Trump had arranged the meeting in March, stating they will 'have at it' after the advisors were reportedly angry with Musk for overstepping and, as one adviser said, essentially 'setting [agencies] on fire.'
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The adviser explained: “[Musk] miscalculated his ability to act just completely autonomously. He had some missteps in all of these agencies, which would have been fine because everyone acknowledges that when you’re moving fast and breaking things, not everything is going to go right.
"But it’s different when you do that and you don’t even have the buy-in of the agency you’re setting on fire.”
Before his spat with Rubio, Duffy had also accused Musk of trying to lay off air traffic controllers at a time when the US was reeling from 'multiple plane crashes'.
Meanwhile, Collins pulled up the fact Musk's cuts threaten thousands of veterans, a core of Trump's voter base.
Trump's tariffs
A turning point appeared to come from Trump's tariffs as the billionaire called for a 'zero-tariff situation', while Tesla voiced concerns about counter-tariffs affecting business.
Hammering the nail in the coffin, Musk also called Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, 'dumber than a sack of bricks'.
Trump later confirmed that Musk would not be attending a Pentagon briefing about a potential war with China based on his apparent conflict of interest.
Steve Bannon said this Pentagon spat changed everything, writing: “You could feel it, everything changed, the fever had been broken."
'No one likes the guy'
Rushab Sanghvi, the general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, is another who is celebrating Musk's soon departure, saying: “If he had stayed in the shadows and done his stuff, who knows how bad it would have been? But no one likes the guy."
The end of Musk in DOGE?
As a 'special government employee,' Musk's time at the head of DOGE was always limited to 130 days.
Now, it appears time is up with Musk himself telling reporters that he's been cutting down on DOGE issues to a few days per week, then to 'every other week' and, most recently, stating: "I think I've done enough."
And if this report is to be believed, many of Trump's allies might just be breathing a sigh of relief about that.
Topics: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Politics, Business, US News
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