Elon Musk strategizes $1 trillion spending cuts with House DOGE panel in closed-door meeting

Elon Musk met with a small group of House Republicans on Wednesday evening where he discussed avenues for cost savings in a quest to find as much as $1 trillion in government waste, people familiar with the discussion told Fox News Digital.

‘The executive DOGE team is confident, they think they can get $1 trillion,’ one lawmaker familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital. ‘Now, we’ll see, right? And the thing is, he acknowledged that we’re going to make mistakes, but we’re going to correct them very quickly.’

The GOP lawmaker said some concerns were raised about whether other government offices like the Treasury Department ‘have the bandwidth to do’ what Musk is detailing. ‘And he says, ‘We’re gonna help them,” the lawmaker said.

Multiple sources said Musk met with the House DOGE subcommittee led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for about 45 minutes before a wider meeting with the House GOP Conference.

Several people said Musk pointed to areas where the government could be made more efficient, including an audit of how many dead people were de-listed off some federal benefits like Social Security but still had taxpayer dollars going into their accounts for unemployment or other programs.

‘A lot of this is cross-referencing databases, making sure they’re talking to each other,’ Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, a member of the subcommittee, told Fox News Digital.

Two lawmakers present for the meeting also said the idea of a congressional rescissions package was floated as another way to claw back excessive government spending, as Republicans and Democrats battle over giving President Donald Trump leeway to spend less money than Congress appropriates.

Rescissions authority is granted to Congress to allow for the cancelation of some planned government spending. 

It’s also among the special cases where the Senate only needs 51 votes to pass a bill, rather than 60 – meaning Senate Republicans can pass it without Democratic support.

Greene confirmed the sit-down to reporters but did not mention talk of congressional spending authority.

‘We had a very lengthy meeting, just my DOGE committee with Elon Musk and his team, and learned a lot of valuable information. The collaboration is going to be fantastic and it needs to happen,’ Greene said.

Also present at both of Musk’s House meetings was his adviser Steve Davis, people told Fox News Digital.

After the smaller-scale meeting, Musk had a wider discussion with House Republicans where he spoke for roughly 15 minutes and then took questions.

‘What we were doing was getting a deeper insight into what Elon Musk is doing and kind of being able to strategize with him, how we can coordinate what we’re doing,’ Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, who is also on the DOGE subcommittee, told reporters.

Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital that ‘systematically there were no checks in order to make sure the taxpayer dollars were spent correctly.’

He said Musk did not discuss other fiscal battles ongoing in Congress, and that Musk ‘was just trying to outline what they are finding in a very short period of time and how little accountability exists in the operating system of our government.’

‘It made me laugh and it made me sick all at the same time,’ Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital. ‘The level of waste and what they are finding is mindblowing.’

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said Musk was ‘just getting started.’

‘He just says, ‘I’m investigating and finding things that you really can’t argue with.’ He said he’s making mistakes, he’ll correct them, but his mission is to uncover where our tax money is. Let the chips fall where they may,’ Norman said.

It comes as some House Republicans have faced contentious town halls or demonstrations related to Musk and DOGE in their home districts. GOP lawmakers previously shared frustrations with Fox News Digital that they were often left somewhat in the dark on Musk’s work. 

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., told reporters he aired similar concerns in the closed-door meeting. Musk was receptive to those issue, he added.

‘I spoke to Elon specifically about this. There are our veterans and our farmers. So there’s a lot of angst going right now because people don’t understand what’s going on,’ Van Orden said. ‘And I expressed very clearly the concerns of our veterans community. And Mr. Musk was explicitly clear that we will make sure that we have no degradation of the benefits for our veterans that they have earned.’

The back-to-back House meetings for Musk came after he spoke with Senate Republicans in a similar closed-door setting.