Elon Musk’s Oval Office address showed why he’s a menacing foe for the federal government and why President Donald Trump is playing with fire by ceding him so much power.

Elon Musk, the head of President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency, was at the White House for Trump’s signing of an executive order directing federal employees to work with DOGE to cut the size of the government’s workforce.

The president let the spotlight in the Oval Office go to his billionaire friend/budget slasher, who cited blank checks and 150-year-old Social Security beneficiaries to justify purging the federal work force.

A judge extended his pause Monday on the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal workforce through mass buyouts, hours after a different judge ruled the government had violated an order to stop freezing federal funds—the latest in a slew of legal actions as Democrats and others fight President Donald Trump and cost-cutting czar Elon Musk in court.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's most powerful adviser, Elon Musk, made a rare public appearance at the White House on Tuesday to defend the swift and extensive cuts he's pushing across the federal government while acknowledging there have been mistakes and will be more.

The world's richest man took questions for the first time since he was appointed to lead a sweeping government cost-cutting effort.