During the meeting, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency complained that Rubio had fired “nobody,” despite the sweeping government layoffs recommended by his organization.
The secretary of state, who was already seething after Musk had axed USAID, an agency within Rubio’s purview, unleashed onto Musk in front of the president’s entire Cabinet.
Rubio claimed that Musk was lying, conveniently forgetting the 1,500 officials who had taken the government’s offer for deferred resignation. Rubio even asked whether Musk wanted him to hire all of them back, just so he could fire them in a more outrageous fashion, according to the Times. Rubio then tried to lay out his plans to reorganize his agency, which didn’t impress the DOGE czar, either.
Musk remarked that it was a good thing Rubio was so “good on TV.”
In the end, Trump defended Rubio, who he said was doing a “great job” and was incredibly busy implementing Trump’s agenda.
About 700 State Department employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned in the last two months. The Times reported Friday that senior officials at the State Department have drawn up plans to close a dozen consulates overseas by the summer, and are considering wider shutdowns—a move that will likely undermine U.S. soft power around the world.
Rubio wasn’t the only one who got into it with the DOGE czar. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy also got heated over Musk’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce, and accused him of trying to fire air traffic controllers. His accusation comes amid a national shortage of the highly essential workers, and following several high-profile plane crashes.
Musk said that Duffy’s claim was a “lie,” and the two went back and forth. When Musk demanded names, Duffy said there were none because he had stepped in before the positions could actually be terminated.
Musk then baselessly claimed that the Federal Aviation Authority had staffed air traffic control towers with so-called DEI hires, which Duffy denied. Trump ended that argument by demanding Duffy hire air traffic controllers who were “geniuses” from MIT, the Times reported.
