Trump puts new limits on Elon Musk’s authority amid DOGE backlash

President Donald Trump said he told his Cabinet secretaries during a meeting Thursday that staffing decisions will be left up to them, not Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump said he instructed Cabinet members to work alongside DOGE on spending and workforce reductions while clarifying that final job cuts will be at the discretion of the department leaders.

“We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people.”

“As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet,'” Trump added.

His comments come as the sweeping cuts carried out by DOGE have lead to lawsuits, voter anxiety and heightened concerns from congressional Republicans.

The message from Trump was also a rare public curtailing of Musk’s authority as he moves to help reshape the federal government, at times stepping on the toes of the Cabinet secretaries.

Several members of Trump’s Cabinet bristled when Musk recently ordered federal employees to outline their work or face termination, with multiple agencies and departments initially fending off the effort.

“As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the “scalpel” rather than the “hatchet”,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

At the same time, Trump also praised Musk and DOGE after Thursday’s meeting.

“I think they’ve done an amazing job,” he told reporters.

Musk called the meeting “very productive” in a post on X. It was his second time attending a Trump Cabinet meeting, after dominating the first gathering last month when he called DOGE a “support function” for the federal agencies to help them “find 15% reduction in fraud and waste.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that his directive to his Cabinet members was: “Keep all the people you want, all the people that you need.”

But he also indicated that Musk would step in if sufficient cuts aren’t made by the department heads.

“If they can cut, it’s better. If they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting,” Trump said.

Trump and Musk have sought to drastically cut the size of the federal workforce, firing thousands of employees and moving to shutter entire agencies.

The speed and intensity of the cuts has roiled some Republican members of Congress and sparked calls for greater transparency into DOGE’s work, particularly after some lawmakers faced fierce backlash from town hall attendees in their respective districts.

Musk met with Senate Republicans for nearly two hours in a closed-door meeting Wednesday to address their concerns over potential voter backlash to the cuts.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., organized the lunch meeting after several Republican senators raised concerns to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles last month about being uninformed on DOGE’s work.

Musk also met with House Republicans on Wednesday, later telling reporters that he spoke about the “opportunity to improve expenditures in the government.”