Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has beef with Washington’s newest, most powerful couple: Mr. Elon Musk and Mr. President Donald Trump. The latter consistently slams him publicly and demeans him, while the former wants to cut his team’s spending by at least 40%.
While they both haven’t explicitly said it ever, it’s fair to assume that the president and his ‘First Buddy’ don’t like Powell very much. But hey, the feeling is quite mutual. Though Powell would never say it, you can see it in his eyes when he’s asked about Elon or Trump.
It’s just not his style to diss people publicly. This doesn’t mean he is better than the two best friends, it just means he’s reserved while they like to be overly-transparent with the American public.
Powell shrugs off Trump and Elon beef
We assume that Elon’s new project, the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E), is known to everyone by now. During his press conference yesterday, reporters bombarded Powell with questions about Elon and Trump beef, naturally.
On both matters, he said he had “no comments,” making it clear that he respects himself too much to engage publicly, judging by his particularly condescending tone.
Powell’s career has shown that he is pretty easy going though, so if the president and his bestie were to invite him to the Oval for a chat, they’d probably fix things a lot sooner. It might not be too late yet.
But the more they keep attacking him in public, the more he’s gonna revolt and when he finally snaps and sues Trump, like he promised to, the US Constitution tells us he’ll likely win. But you know who won’t? The economy, the stock market, and the crypto market.
The specific question that was asked was: “I want to ask you about Fed employment. I know that tax money is not used here, but Elon Musk alleges that the Fed is, quote, ‘absurdly overstaffed.’ We’ve seen the executive branch push to reduce the federal workforce. I just want to get your reaction.”
Powell pursed his lips, hiding his frustration as he responded with: “You know, we run a very careful budget process. We’re fully aware that, you know, we owe the—we owe that to the public, and we believe we do that. And I’ve got no further comment than that. Thanks.”
Elon, though, has been all over X (formerly Twitter) making memes about D.O.G.E and terrifying Federal workers into submission. Just yesterday, he tweeted the meme below.
Elon Musk’s meme via X
The eccentric richest man in the world wants to cut $1 trillion from the US government budget by July 2026 when D.O.G.E would be officially terminated. He currently has an office in the West Wing and spends a lot of time around president Trump and his family.
Though many seem to expect this bromance to end within the year, Elon and Trump are standing together tall against it, with a mutual understanding of their relationship that you just have to respect, even if you don’t admire it.
Texas gets inspired
Interestingly, D.O.G.E’s whole thing has inspired many new bills in Texas. On Jan. 29, Dan Patrick, Texas’s lieutenant governor, announced he’s pushing a bill called “Texas DOGE – Improving Government Efficiency.”
Patrick’s DOGE bill isn’t public yet (Senate Bill 14 is missing from the state’s website), but similar ideas are floating around the Capitol.
One proposal would create a government office to sniff out waste and get rid of pointless regulations. Another plan involves an advisory group to do the same but with a fancier name.
State Rep. Will Metcalf bragged about it, saying Texas has already mastered the art of slashing red tape and keeping things lean. “This approach mirrors the federal efforts to reduce wasteful spending, but Texas has led by example when it comes to government efficiency and slashing red tape,” he said.
