US President Donald Trump said he expects Elon Musk to uncover hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon fraud and abuse as part of an investigation that the billionaire will conduct, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
“I'll tell him very soon, maybe in the next 24 hours, to check the Department of Education. Then the Armed Forces. To check the military“, Trump said during a television interview with the “Fox News“ channel. “We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud and abuse“, Trump added, speaking of the Pentagon.
The US Department of Defense budget is approximately a trillion dollars a year. In December, then-President Joe Biden signed a bill authorizing $895 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
Musk, who the White House says is a special civil servant, has been tasked by Trump to lead efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce. As part of the initiative, Musk's associates are seeking to gain access to confidential information in computer systems at various government agencies.
Critics say the effort is likely illegal, risks exposing classified information and effectively destroys entire agencies without congressional approval.
National Security Adviser Mike Walz suggested in a separate interview with NBC that the Pentagon's shipbuilding processes, which he described as "an absolute mess," may be of particular interest to the Department of Government Efficiency.
A US President Donald Trump administration official has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cease almost all of its work, effectively closing the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
Russell Vote, the newly appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget, has ordered the agency to halt work on its investigations and not to open new ones.
The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama pushed for its inclusion in the 2010 financial reform legislation that followed the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the AP reports.
Vote also ordered the agency to “cease all oversight activities and checks“.
Because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created by Congress, a separate act of the legislature would be required to formally abolish it.
The administration's move highlights the conflict between Trump's more populist promises to cut costs for working-class families and his promise to reduce government regulations, the AP notes.