94Ha Viewpoint
As Tesla’s stock price has experienced a seven-week plunge, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), admitted in an interview on Monday that he had “encountered great difficulties” in running his business.
However, at the same time, Musk said that he would continue to work hard to promote the “slimming down” of the US federal government and improve government efficiency widely.
Optimistic about the plunge in Tesla’s stock price
On Monday, Tesla’s stock price suffered its worst drop in five years, plummeting 14% in a single day, wiping out all the gains since Trump was elected in November 2024.
Tesla’s stock price trend in the past year
Since Musk joined the Trump administration as Minister of Government Efficiency, Tesla’s stock price has fallen for seven consecutive weeks. Tesla has lost more than 50% of its market value during this period, equivalent to nearly $800 billion.
On Monday, Musk responded to a post on Twitter about Tesla’s biggest one-day drop in history, saying: “In the long run, everything will be fine.”
In an interview, Musk responded to the question of his company’s stock price plummeting by saying: “Think about the good side – look at the bright side of things.”
In addition to Tesla and X, Musk’s other businesses include space exploration company SpaceX and neurotechnology company Neuralink.
In an interview on Monday, when the host asked, as the head of DOGE, “You gave up other things… How did your other business run?”
Musk said bluntly: “With great difficulty.” Then he chuckled.
“Yes, I mean,” Musk sighed, “I’m just trying to make the government more efficient here, eliminate waste and fraud. In fact, so far, we have made good progress. At present, we are saving more than $4 billion a day. So this is very important.”
Will continue to promote the overall “slimming down” of the government
Musk also revealed in an interview that the current DOGE team has more than 100 people, distributed in almost every government agency. In the future, Musk’s ultimate goal is to have 200 employees from fields such as information security, software coding, finance, etc.
“Unless we are stopped, we will save $1 trillion,” Musk predicted.
Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday showed that the federal government’s employment in February decreased by 10,000 since DOGE began to promote the government’s “slimming down”.
“Frankly, I can’t believe I’m doing this here. It’s a little weird. But I think we have a huge federal budget deficit, which is a $2 trillion deficit. It’s still growing. We pay more interest than the budget of the Department of Defense. I think this is a real wake-up call for me,” Musk said.
“If we don’t do something about it, there will be no money for anything. We are just paying off debts. Really, I just don’t want to bankrupt the United States.”
When asked which department DOGE will target next, Musk replied:
“DOGE is trying to take broad action across all departments, not just one department at a time. We are trying to improve the overall efficiency of the government.”
