As Elon Musk continues to dismantle government agencies, threaten workers with layoffs and gain access to government data, congressional Republicans on Wednesday blocked Democratic efforts to compel him to answer for his actions under oath.
At the same time, protests demanding accountability continued.
Musk, who has not made any public appearances since the inauguration, has publicly called for slashing federal government spending and, through his non-government organization Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has frozen funding for several agencies including USAID the international aid agency.
Designated a special government employee by the White House, Musk claims he has been checking with President Donald Trump about his tactics.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives to the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Pool via Reuters
“I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said Monday about his effort to curtail USAID.
On Wednesday, more than 100 people protested in front of the Department of Labor, which they said is Musk’s latest target.
Protesters rally outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Organized by the AFL-CIO, Democratic lawmakers, and other federal employee groups, demonstrators held signs saying, “nobody elected Musk,” “Elon owns Trump,” and “checks and balances.”
David Casserly, a Department of Labor staffer told ABC News’ Jay O’Brien that what Musk is doing is “not a good thing for the American people” and he had a question for the 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.
“Is this what you voted for? Is this what you really want? Some unelected billionaire coming in and deciding to cut things he had never heard of until yesterday,” he said
People stand in front of the Department of Labor, protesting DOGE’s efforts to gut federal agencies, in Washington, D.C., Feb. 5, 2025.
Jay O’Brien/ABC News
Meanwhile, fireworks over Musk’s actions exploded in Congress.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, tore into Musk at a hearing as he moved to subpoena the controversial billionaire.
“It’s a puzzling role for many people, certainly on this side of the aisle, and I think for some on yours, who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight or concurrence,” he said.
Republicans on the committee pushed back and engaged in a shouting match with Democrats over Musk. When GOP chairman Rep. James Comer put the subpoena motion to a vote, it failed along party lines.
Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who has shown support for DOGE in the past, abstained from voting.
On X, Musk dismissed the Democrats’ effort to force him to testify.
“How is this reality? Lmaooo,” he posted.
Comer and other Republicans came to Musk and DOGE’s defense contending, without evidence, that the federal government was wasting taxpayer dollars and those agencies needed to be reviewed and scaled back.
“Elon Musk trimmed the fat on X and we have the chance to do the same here,” Comer said about Musk’s deep cuts at the social media giant.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Ranking Member Rep. Gerry Connolly speaks with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, left, during a hearing on “Rightsizing Federal Government,” on Capitol Hill, Feb. 5, 2025.
Al Drago/Getty Images
Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter in 2022 has been seen by some business analysts as an unsuccessful investment as the company’s value has gone down sharply over the years with users and advertisers dropping the platform.
The mutual fund Fidelity marked down its estimate of X’s value by 78.7% as of the end of August, according to a financial disclosure.
Republicans have maintained that Musk is not in charge and answers to Trump.
When asked about Democrats’ concerns and anger over DOGE, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday said Trump campaigned to make the government more efficient and defended Musk’s involvement in it.
While Musk won’t be taking questions from leaders anytime soon, he has spent a lot of time on his social media platform making his case.
Last Thursday he reposted an X post that had a screenshot from a news article talking about DOGE aides looking at the Medicare payment system.
“Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening,” Musk wrote in his post without any further details or evidence to back his claim.
The Medicare system wasn’t the only government agency he put on notice this week.
Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk arrives for the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington.
Kevin Lamarque – Pool/Getty Images
The Treasury Department said that officials connected to DOGE have been granted “read-only” access to the sensitive Treasury system that manages trillions of dollars in government payments.
Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that DOGE is not allowed to write new code.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency responsible for forecasting the weather, researching and analyzing climate and weather data and monitoring and tracking extreme weather events like hurricanes, is now being scrutinized by Musk’s team, several sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
DOGE is looking for anything tied to DEI and that they removed anything DEI-related from bulletin boards, including posters and signs, the sources said. They also checked bathroom signs to ensure they complied with Trump’s executive orders.
A former NOAA employee told ABC News that he is concerned that representatives from DOGE will employ what he called the Musk’s strategy of breaking things now and fixing them later. He said he’s worried that NOAA’s irreplaceable climate and weather data could be damaged or lost and that DOGE may be following the Project 2025 playbook.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the plan, even though his nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was one of its authors.
Project 2025 calls for breaking up NOAA and privatizing forecast operations. In the document, the authors wrote that NOAA is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”
As these moves take place, questions have been raised about how exactly Musk and his team are operating.
Musk initially wanted an office in the White House West Wing but told people he thought what he was given was too small, multiple people familiar with his comments told ABC News. So, instead, he took an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the sources said.
Musk moved beds into both the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the United States Office of Personnel Management, according to sources. The move is intended to allow both Musk and his staff to sleep there if working late, the sources said.
It follows a familiar practice at tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Signage outside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate Prediction headquarters in College Park, Md., Dec. 5, 2024.
Michael A. McCoy/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Musk’s team is staffed largely by engineers and young people with little experience in government policy. At least one as young as 19 years old, according to sources.
Trump was asked Tuesday about the access Musk’s team, including the younger members, had to government data and facilities and he responded he thought it was a good move.
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have repeatedly discounted Musk’s claims about DOGE’s powers.
“It has no authority to make spending decisions, to shut down programs or ignore federal law. This is not debatable. This is an indisputable fact. No authority for spending decisions to shut down programs or ignore federal law,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Matthew Glasser, Will Steakin, Katherine Faulders and Max Zahn contributed to this report.
