Elon Musk Loses It With Mishal Husain Over DOGE Question: ‘Like Talking To A Computer’

Elon Musk flipped out at a journalist who dared to question the billionaire’s success as President Donald Trump’s federal spending hatchet man.

The tech billionaire told Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain, a respected former BBC broadcaster, that “it’s like talking to a computer” when she suggested his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) risked falling short of its $2 trillion savings target.

On Tuesday, Musk was interviewed by Husain via video at an economic forum in Qatar, and was asked about DOGE not meeting the goal.

She reminded Musk of his pledge — at a high-profile rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October — that he’d cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget.

Experts had dismissed the $2 trillion aim as extremely unrealistic since it would equate to almost all discretionary funding, including programs for transportation, education and housing, so well beyond the fraud and waste Musk has said repeatedly would make up the bulk of the cuts.

DOGE has itself said it has only slashed $160 billion to date.

“You’ve talked about $4 billion a day being saved,” Husain said. “And I think everyone can agree that combating waste and inefficiency in government is a very good thing, but if you add that up, it’s not gonna get to $2 trillion over the lifetime of DOGE.”

Musk appeared not to understand or hear the question, so Husain repeated herself.

“I mean, I feel you’re somewhat trapped in the NPC dialogue tree of a traditional journalist,” Musk snapped. The term NPC derives from video games and refers to a “non-playable character.”

“So it’s difficult when I’m conversing with someone who’s trapped in the dialogue tree of a conventional journalist because it’s like talking to a computer.”

In a defense of DOGE’s work, Musk went on to stress the organisation “is an advisory group” and “we’re doing the best we can.”

He conceded the three branches of government “are to some degree opposed to that level of cost savings.”

The defensive response is the latest sign that the world’s richest man’s dream of transforming Washington, DC, has turned into a nightmare.

Almost ever-present at the president’s side in the early days of the second Trump administration, the Tesla CEO has since scaled back his day-to-day involvement with DOGE following political and consumer backlash that was threatening his business interests.

Trump signalled their relationship was changing when he effectively said farewell to the tech billionaire at a Cabinet meeting last month.

“He wants to get back home to his cars,” the president said.

In the same interview with Husain, Musk revealed he plans to significantly cut his political spending, saying he has “done enough.”

The GOP donor spent at least $250 million to get Trump elected last year.

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Mishal Husain Slams Tories’ ‘Economic Competence’ In Spat With Jeremy Hunt

Mishal Husain did not let Jeremy Hunt boast about the UK’s economic growth today and reminded him of the disasters the country has faced under the Tories.

While the chancellor was celebrating the news from the ONS that the UK is officially out of recession, the Today programme host kicked off the interview by saying: “It’s not a strong recovery is it?

“Some people would call it anaemic. You’re not calling it strong are you?

“That’s not what it is. The economy has barely grown over the last two years.”

Hunt claimed over the last quarter, the UK had the joint-highest growth in the G7– and then blamed slow growth on the Bank of England’s high interest rates.

Husain hit back: “You’re portraying yourself as the people in whose hands the economy is safe, and yet many voters, particularly those who are perhaps finding themselves re-mortgaging this month on higher rates and seeing the facts that fixed rate mortgage deals have been edging up – and others – will be remembering what happened under Liz Truss and that mini-budget.

“And they’ll say: ‘How can you possibly, after the events of the last two and half years, portray yourself as the party of economy competence?’”

Sunak’s predecessor unveiled £45bn of unfunded tax cuts in her mini-budget in 2022, causing the pound to plummet.

“Well, there were some mistakes that were made in that mini-budget and we corrected them within weeks,” the chancellor said.

He also pointed to the energy shock triggered by the Ukraine war and said it was “just wrong” to attribute all price rises to the mini-budget.

“But, it wasn’t economically competent, was it, to do that?” Husain pushed. “And do you accept that it’s fair for voters to go into the next election, remembering that happened under the Conservatives?”

Hunt said the “overall picture” shows that the UK has grown faster than France, Germany, Italy and Japan since the Conservatives took over in 2010.

He also pointed to the IMF’s predictions that the UK would continue to grow faster over the next six years.

He failed to mention that the think tank OECD predicted last week the UK would be the second slowest-growing economy in 2024, and the slowest in 2025.

Hunt maintained that voters support the Conservative Party because “they trust us to take tough and difficult decisions in the long-term interest of the economy”.

“You’re asking us to ignore Liz Truss, aren’t you? To say Liz Truss never happened,” Husain said – which Hunt denied.

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