Trump announces that the Pentagon will be among the next objectives of Musk’s cuts | International

Elon Musk technological oligarch, at the head of the entity to cut expense and bureaucratic staff in the administration of the United States, will put in its spotlight to the Department of Education and the Pentagon, where its boss, Donald Trump, hopes he will find “Hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse” to cut. “I am going to tell you very soon, maybe in 24 hours, to examine the Department of Education… Then, to the military. We are going to verify the military, ”said the US president in an interview with the Fox News television network.

In the interview, recorded on the occasion of the Super Bowl, the final of the American football competition, Trump considers that once the Musk entity, the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge, for its acronym in English) begins to examine the Pentagon systems will find abundant material to re -get the scythe, after starting the dismantling of the Federal Development Aid Agency (USAID) – now temporarily paralyzed by a judge -, to enter the computer systems of different departments and threaten with the cut of tens of thousands of jobs throughout the administration.

The Pentagon, directed in the Trump era by the expressing of the Fox News Pete Hegseth chain, is the largest department of the US administration. It has a budget of 895,000 million dollars and has about three million people on payroll, including fixed and hired and active military and in the reserve.

The White House National Security Minister Mike Walz expressed himself in similar terms during an interview in the “Meet the Press” program of the NBC chain. The former retired congressman and military indicated in particular the necessary processes to authorize and build warships. “Everything seems to cost too much, needing too much time and ending up too little to the soldiers … It is necessary that business leaders go and reform from top Tremendous, ”he said.

Since Trump took possession of the American presidency on January 20, Musk and his young Doge technicians have put the federal administration up by offering a low incentive with eight months of salary to the two million government officials. The richest man in the world has declared that “the time has come for the USAID to die”; Their teams have tried to access the systems of various federal departments, although the judges have blocked several of those attempts.

This same Saturday, a magistrate in Manhattan temporarily vetoed Doge access to treasure systems, on the argument that the confidentiality of the data would be endangered and increased the possibility of a cyber attack against those computer programs.

Critics of Musk’s initiatives and their teams denounce that these steps are illegal and lead to dismantling entire agencies of the government without the necessary approval of Congress. They also claim that neither the owner of Tesla nor his hired have the necessary experience in the administration to know what is necessary to cut and what not, and can eliminate necessary programs that would be very difficult to restore once interrupted.

Doge is an entity approved by Donald Trump, but is not part of the US government or must account for the Capitol, as the Executive Power must do. Last week, the White House revealed that the president has appointed the billionaire “special government employee.” “He is not winning anything. In fact, I wonder how you can spend time (Doge), he is completely dedicated to it, ”said the US President in his Fox interview.