Axios AM
May 01, 2025
1 big thing — Musk interview: DOGE here to stay
Elon Musk acknowledges his budget-cutting exercise known as DOGE hasn't been as successful as he hoped. But he says it may go on for President Trump's entire four years in office — more than twice as long as originally planned.
Why it matters: DOGE was set up to terminate on July 4, 2026. But Musk now says his controversial group could help oversee the slashing of federal spending through the end of 2028.
- "I think so," Musk said of DOGE being extended. "It's up to the president."
Musk held an hour-long Q&A with Axios' Alex Isenstadt and about a dozen other news outlets in the White House's Roosevelt Room, just outside the Oval Office.
- It had the feel of a de-facto exit interview for Musk, who's planning to scale back his time in Washington to focus on running his companies.
- Tesla last month reported a big drop in profits. Musk told analysts he'll spend more time running the car company "now that the major work of establishing Department of Government Efficiency is done."
Musk insisted his transition doesn't mean DOGE was done.
- "DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism," he said. "Buddha isn't alive anymore. You wouldn't ask the question: 'Who would lead Buddhism?'"
Top takeaways from the wide-ranging interview:
1. He acknowledged DOGE's shortcomings.
- Musk said that so far, DOGE has cut $160 billion in federal spending — far short of the $2 trillion goal he set last year.
- "In the grand scheme of things, I think we've been effective. Not as effective as I like ... but we've made progress."
- Many critics — including some of the thousands of federal workers who lost their jobs to DOGE cuts — have questioned whether the relatively small savings is worth the chaos.
- Some of the resistance to the cost-cutting, he said, has come from within the administration.
- "There's a long way to go," he said. "It's pretty difficult ... It's like: How much pain is the Cabinet and Congress willing to take? It can be done. But it requires dealing with a lot of complaints."
DOGE leaders said they had cut about 1% of the federal workforce, or 20,000 people.
- "I think we're probably getting things right 70-80% of the time," Musk said, adding that he thought DOGE eventually could reach $1 trillion in savings.
2. He hasn't always liked the job.
- Musk recounted the backlash he faced for leading DOGE, and protests and vandalism targeting Tesla dealerships.
- "Being attacked relentlessly is not super fun," he said. "Seeing cars on fire is not fun."
3. He quietly advised the Pentagon on defense spending.
Musk — owner of the SpaceX rocket company — said he'd aggressively encouraged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to invest in hypersonic missiles and low-range drones.
- "I think he's in agreement, by the way," Musk added.
4. Musk sometimes stays in the Lincoln Bedroom.
- He's been tight-lipped about where he spends his time while in Washington. But he revealed that he'd stayed overnight "more than once" in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom at Trump's invitation.
- "He was like: 'Where are you staying?' I was like: 'I don't know. At a friend's house, I guess.' And then he was like: 'Why don't you stay here?' I was like: 'Sure.'"
- Trump, Musk recalled, once called him late at night and encouraged him to get ice cream from the White House kitchen. "Don't tell RFK," Musk joked.
5. His West Wing office is small. And doesn't get much natural light.
- Musk, the world's richest person, said he plans to keep his tiny office to use when he's in Washington, which he said will be just one to two days a week. He said it's a tight space and gets only a "glimmer of sunlight."
But Musk, who's spoken previously about the death threats he and his team have faced, said he didn't mind it from a security standpoint.
- "It has a view of nothing," he said. "It has a window but all you see is the HVAC unit, which is fine. It makes it harder to shoot me, I guess. There's not a good line of sight."
2. 🇨🇳 China's not backing down
President Trump is putting China's economy through a trillion-dollar stress test, and he may not like the result, Axios' Dave Lawler and Christine Wang write.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insists China is far more reliant on the U.S. than vice-versa, and thus has no choice but to blink first. But Chinese President Xi Jinping's hesitance to rush to the table suggests he thinks time is on China's side.
Why it matters: We're about to get some indications of who is right.
🚢 The big picture: China says it sent around 15% of its exports, worth $525 billion, to the U.S. last year — about 3x what flowed in the opposite direction.
- New export orders are already falling sharply, portending empty shelves and price hikes in the U.S.
The latest: "I believe that it's up to China to de-escalate, because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them, and so these 120%, 145% tariffs are unsustainable," Bessent told CNBC.
- China's inflation and retail sales data in the coming weeks should provide the first insights into whether the country could really outlast the U.S. in a prolonged trade war.
🛍️ Between the lines: China has been endeavoring for years to reduce its reliance on exports to the U.S., and the hunt for alternative markets has taken on a new urgency.
- E-commerce sales for low-cost Chinese retailers have started to tick up in Europe.
- Beijing is also urging consumers to spend more at home, offering perks like rebates for trading in old cars and appliances.
🇺🇦 61 days later ... Two months after the epic Oval Office blowup, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Economic Minister Yulia Svyrydenko signed the Ukrainian mineral profits deal in Washington. Go deeper.
3. 🚨 Scoop: White House does Drudge
4. 🕊️ Pope's influence transcends Catholicism
The successor to Pope Francis will take over a Catholic Church with more than 1.4 billion members around the world. But his influence will likely reach far beyond the church, Axios' Russ Contreras writes.
- Why it matters: Popes today don't just oversee church doctrine and administration. They're global diplomats who can foster peace agreements, accelerate fights against diseases and impact population growth.
🌐 The big picture: In his dozen years as pope, Francis' decisions affected millions of non-Catholics worldwide.
- He called for countries to treat refugees with dignity, pushed policies to counter climate change, demanded better treatment for marginalized groups such as LGBTQ people, and urged nations to end hostilities.
Pope John Paul II, an anticommunist, helped to end the Cold War and prevent a nuclear war by urging countries to abolish nuclear weapons, some historians argue.
5. Abuse allegations fuel White House resistance
6. 🔎 Palantir powers ICE
Palantir, the tech giant, is building a new tool to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with enhanced capabilities to support deportation efforts, Axios' Alayna Alvarez reports from federal documents.
- Why it matters: The company has been an ICE contractor for more than a decade, spanning the Obama and Biden administrations, but its new scope of work signals a larger role in immigration enforcement under President Trump.
⚡ Catch up quick: In mid-April, ICE awarded Palantir a $30 million contract to deliver a new platform — the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS) — by Sept. 25, per federal records.
- The prototype will give ICE "near real-time visibility" on people self-deporting from the U.S., according to those records. It will also help the agency track and manage deportations, monitor visa overstays and target transnational criminal organizations, such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
Zoom in: In a publicly available contract justification document, ICE says it has an "urgent and compelling" need for the new system — and that Palantir is the "only source" capable of delivering it in time.
7. 🩺 RFK Jr.'s not-so-secret weapon
8. 1 for the road: WNBA's historic waves
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