(Zero Hedge)—AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks warns that Elon Musk’s efforts to expose waste and abuse at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may be futile unless Congress significantly reduces federal spending.
“What we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that Elon has found and eliminate it from the budget, because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget,” Sacks said on the All-In podcast.
.@DavidSacks: “What we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that @elonmusk has found and eliminate it from the budget, because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget.” pic.twitter.com/BJbk4GSm0A
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) April 26, 2025
Sacks warned that the real danger isn’t Musk backing down, but Congress slipping back into its entrenched pattern of reckless spending.
“These old bulls in Congress who control the appropriations process—are they going to basically backslide and just put the spending back in because it’s easier to engage in this logrolling, or do we take advantage of this?” he asked.
Sacks emphasized the immense personal cost Musk has borne to reveal systemic corruption, citing the widespread protests targeting Tesla properties.
“This has cost him enormously. One of the reasons why Tesla is down is because you’ve had crazy leftists engaging in terrorism, firebombing Tesla dealerships,” the Trump official said. “We’ve basically learned that this whole NGO thing is a giant scam where the people in government give enormous amounts of money to their friends, probably with the expectation that when they leave government, they’re going to be next in line at the trough.”
Since Musk took the helm at DOGE, Tesla has been under siege from a wave of protests and brazen acts of vandalism across the U.S. and beyond, with far-left activists resorting to arson, gunfire, and defacing dealerships, vehicles, and charging stations with hateful graffiti. The so-called “Tesla Takedown” movement has orchestrated demonstrations at hundreds of Tesla locations, pushing an anti-DOGE agenda to tank Musk’s company by calling for mass sell-offs of Tesla stock and boycotts of the brand.
Sacks then stressed that while Musk has laid bare the government’s dysfunction, without decisive action from Congress to slash spending, his efforts risk being squandered.
“Elon’s done an enormous service exposing this. But it’s not entirely up to him. In order for us to realize the benefit, we need Congress now to act on that. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” he warned.
In March, President Donald Trump threw his support behind a rescission package to implement major spending cuts spearheaded by DOGE. “It would be great. I think we’re going to do that,” Trump told reporters.
According to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) obtained by the New York Post, the administration is pushing two proposals to slash $9.3 billion. “The first includes a rescission of $8.3 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending (out of $22 billion) that does not expire in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The second is a separate rescission of all Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — which funds the politically biased public radio and public television system,” the Post said.
