Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he welcomes Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to come to the Department of Defense (DoD) and help reduce “wasteful spending” – in line with his aim to have the Pentagon achieve the elusive goal of a clean financial audit.
Hegseth’s comments follow remarks made by President Donald Trump last week, where he revealed that he had instructed DOGE to focus its efforts on cutting military expenditure and improving efficiency.
President Trump established DOGE on his first day back in office, placing it within the executive branch rather than creating it as an outside advisory committee.
DOGE initially targeted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), moving to dismantle the agency by taking its website and social media accounts offline, terminating staff, and halting overseas operations. In parallel, DOGE sought to access the Treasury Department’s payment systems to “identify and eliminate inefficiencies,” prompting significant pushback and several lawsuits in the process.
“We’re going to be doing more and more … we’re going to be looking at the Department of Education, looking at even our military. Looking at tremendous amounts of money being spent on things … that have no value,” President Trump said.
However, there is a caveat to the upcoming DOGE review of the DoD: President Trump believes DOGE will identify areas for cuts, but he made it clear that the effort would not be “proportional” to the sweeping reductions seen in USAID.
Additionally, Hegseth explained that Musk and his DOGE team would be a “valuable asset” in streamlining the Pentagon’s auditing process, which remains one of the secretary’s top priorities.
The Pentagon has struggled to pass its annual audit, failing seven consecutive departmentwide financial audits, with the agency’s complex IT systems across the department standing as a significant obstacle to achieving that goal.
“American taxpayers deserve to know exactly how and where their money is spent,” Hegseth said. “We need to know when we spend dollars; we need to know where they’re going and why.”
