President Donald Trump made the surprising announcement Thursday that his Cabinet secretaries do in fact run the government agencies they head — and that Elon Musk doesn’t.
And though the president added that secretaries would work with DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) on spending cuts going forward, he said that they should be “precise” in making job cuts — using a “scapel” and not a “hatchet.”
Trump’s statements — made first in private during a Cabinet meeting, before a version of it was posted on TruthSocial — were widely interpreted as a reining in of Musk’s rampage through the federal workforce, and could mark the end of the first phase of the DOGE project.
Yet hours later, Trump gave a warning of sorts to his agency heads. “We’re gonna be watching them,” he told reporters. “Elon and the group are gonna be watching them. And if they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”
It has not even been two weeks since Trump urged Musk to “GET MORE AGGRESSIVE” — a request that sparked days of chaos — Musk emailed federal workers asking them “what did you do last week” and claimed that not responding would entail resignation, some agencies instructed their employees not to answer, and Musk publicly fumed about the “rude awakening” that was coming.
But on Thursday, Trump struck a different tone and signaled a shift in approach — at least for now.
There are a few possible reasons for that. For one, the questions of what authority Musk has and whether his position is constitutional have been the subject of several lawsuits that are moving forward in the courts. The administration has engaged in some legal game-playing to try to obfuscate whether Musk is calling the shots, but the new “clarification” of his role could be made in hopes of providing a stronger defense to judges.
Another possibility is that, amid some worrying economic signs and trouble in the markets, Trump has chosen to hit pause on the chaos for a bit — on both his trade war and on DOGE. In addition to the various substantive blunders Musk has made and bad headlines he has generated, his widespread layoffs and contract cancellations have economic consequences.
DOGE may also have simply run out of easy agency targets. With USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau semi-dismantled, and the Department of Education reportedly next, it isn’t easy to determine what’s the next agency he could take a wrecking ball to with limited political consequences. So perhaps DOGE will retain its grand ambitions, but will simply take a bit more time to plot out the exact details of the deep cuts they’ll recommend rather than smashing everything up immediately.
Finally, it’s too soon to say this is a permanent change. Trump’s governance approach often goes through a cycle in which he causes chaos, gets tired of the chaos and pulls it back, and then gets bored and causes chaos again. Right now, he may want to rein Musk in. But how will he feel in a week or two?
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