Tesla CEO Elon Musk received unexpected support for his plans to shrink the federal government – from Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders.
The Vermont senator, who twice finished as a runner-up for the Democratic nomination for president, praised Musk’s plans to rein in defense spending, saying, “Elon Musk is right.”
Sanders posted on social media: “Last year, only thirteen senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget riddled with waste and fraud. That has to change.’
But Sanders is not the first Democrat to voice support for Musk’s plans to curb defense spending as co-head of Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency, along with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represented California in the House of Representatives, previously told CNN there are other liberals who would work with DOGE to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse” from the defense budget.
“Let me provide an area where bipartisan cooperation can happen — I mean the defense budget, which is almost a trillion dollars,” Khanna, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday.
“There’s been tremendous reporting about the waste, fraud and abuse of that budget… So if they’re going to say there needs to be more open competition, not the monopolization of defense contractors, and propose recommendations, that’s something I think could to happen. be supported,” he said of Musk and Ramaswamy’s new department.
“If they find areas across government where there is really wasteful spending, they will get support.”
Elon Musk received support from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday for his plans to cut government spending
The Vermont senator praised Musk’s plans to rein in defense spending
Musk and Ramaswamy were tasked by newly elected President Donald Trump to investigate how to massively reduce government spending.
They would then report to Trump within two years, with Trump saying that “their work would be completed no later than July 4, 2026.” A smaller government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift for America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
Both Musk and Ramaswamy have already suggested that they might consider cutting the defense budget.
“We need to strengthen our military by focusing on the *effectiveness* of our defense spending, rather than just reflexively increasing its size,” Ramaswamy wrote on X on November 22.
Musk then responded, “DOGE will improve the efficiency of defense spending.”
The two also wrote in one op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the need to reduce waste in the Ministry of Defense budget after it failed its seventh consecutive audit.
In fact, the agency has never passed an audit since it became legally required to conduct one in 2018, despite being the federal government’s largest area of discretionary spending. according to De Heuvel.
“The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, indicating that Pentagon leadership has little idea how its more than $800 billion annual budget is spent,” they wrote.
Rep. Ro Khanna of California also previously said Democrats would support DOGE’s efforts to cut defense spending
But Michael McCord, undersecretary of the defense comptroller and chief financial officer, emphasized last month that the department “has taken a step in understanding the magnitude of its challenges.”
He said the department is working toward a clean audit by 2028 by modernizing the workforce, improving financial data systems and increasing interoperability between systems.
“Our strongest path forward is to maintain a lot of continuity in what we do,” McCord emphasized.
Part of the problem, however, is that lucrative contracts are handed out to private companies – meaning billions of taxpayer dollars go to companies that don’t have to disclose their spending.
In October, the Pentagon revealed that $431.4 billion, or a whopping 71 percent of spending, went to private contracts last year. The Daily Beast reports this.
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were tasked by newly elected President Donald Trump to find ways to cut the federal budget
The main winners of these contracts were Lockheed Martin, which earned $61.4 billion from the US government; RTX, which earned $24.1 billion; and General Dynamics, which earned $22.9 billion.
Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. defense contractor, earned 74.2 percent of its revenue from the U.S. government in the third quarter, while U.S. commercial revenue accounted for just one percent of its revenue.
Meanwhile, the Defense Department’s budget for fiscal year 2024 was set at $841 billion, or about 12.5 percent of the total federal budget.
It now has $4.1 trillion in assets and $4.3 trillion in liabilities, after reporting last year that it could account for only half of its assets.