Musk puts liberal DOGE-bashing journalist squarely in her place in testy exchange

Questions about DOGE’s success found Elon Musk snarking about his interviewer’s similarity to a particular kind of video game character.

“… it’s like talking to a computer.”

(Video Credit: Bloomberg Television)

For nearly 40 minutes, the world’s richest man fielded questions at the Qatar Economic Forum regarding advancements in artificial intelligence, activist attacks on his companies, and global affairs. As Musk’s role with the Department of Government Efficiency is set to be scaled back, a reiterated question about the advisory group’s objective left the billionaire feeling as though he were being questioned by a non-player character.

Bloomberg Editor Mishal Husain asked Musk about a supposedly “big change,” referencing the less than $200 billion in savings promoted on the DOGE website compared to the July 4, 2026, target of $2 trillion.

After chiding the question as “absurd in its fundamental premise” over the reality of the timeframe with which the group had thus far operated, he went on to explain that the team had made “incredible progress” in their advisory capacity, only to have her try the question in a different wording.

“You’ve talked about $4 billion a day being saved … 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,” said Husain. “The $4 billion a day, if DOGE is gonna run til next July, is not going to get you to $2 trillion. But you still say it’s your aim?”

It was then that Musk asserted, “I mean, I feel you’re somewhat trapped in the NPC dialogue tree of a traditional journalist. 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.”

“DOGE is an advisory group. We’re doing the best we can as an advisory group. The progress made thus far as an advisory group is excellent. I don’t think any advisory group has done better in the history of advisory groups for the government,” he went on. “Now, we do not make the laws, nor do we control the judiciary, nor do we control the executive branch. We are simply advisors. In that context, we’re doing very well.”

“Beyond that — we cannot take action beyond that because we are not some sort of imperial dictator of the government. There are three branches of the government that are to some degree opposed to that level of cost savings,” reminded the billionaire in spite of the insistence of leftists that fascists had taken over the government.

Meanwhile, Musk’s expressed disinterest in future political funding seemed to suggest that Congress’s inability to codify the efforts of DOGE to cut waste, fraud, and abuse out of the federal government was responsible.

As one social media account commented that the failure to implement the savings would “go down in history as one of the all-time biggest political mistakes in history,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy (R) reminded, “There’s still plenty of time for progress. And fight will be bill by bill, program by program, dollar by dollar. But DOGE has drawn public attention to corruption/fraud/waste. It’s a matter of will for Congress to follow the lead and use all tools in the belt.”

There’s still plenty of time for progress. And fight will be bill by bill, program by program, dollar by dollar. But DOGE has drawn public attention to corruption/fraud/waste. It’s a matter of will for Congress to follow the lead and use all tools in the belt. https://t.co/PEX7362rwp

— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) May 21, 2025

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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