‘I Like Elon Musk Doing It’: House Republican Dismisses Idea of Congress Handling Budget Cuts Instead of Tesla Billionaire

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) explained Wednesday why he’s content with letting Elon Musk continue to handle budget cuts instead of officials hired to do that exact thing.

On Wednesday evening, House Republicans met with Musk to discuss the possibility of creating a “legislative package” to codify the budget cuts and firings recommended by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — of which Musk is the face but supposedly not its administrator. Such a move would effectively give Congress the final say on how cuts are made.

Gimenez, who was in the meeting, later appeared on The Source with Kaitlan Collins to talk about the meeting and his general feelings toward Musk’s action. When Collins asked about officials who were already put in place to do the job that Musk is doing, Gimenez said he liked Musk doing it instead.

COLLINS: Yes, but I think one question with that is Congress created offices of these government watchdogs that essentially were doing what Elon Musk was doing — looking through and making recommendations to Congress… Are you saying that these inspectors generals weren’t doing that?

GIMENEZ: I don’t think they were doing the job that Elon Musk is doing.

COLLINS: None of them?

GIMENEZ: I don’t think they were, and so they’re also–

COLLINS: Even the person who found the fraud in Social Security and Medicare, and was able to claw it back? You don’t think that that person was doing their job?

GIMENEZ: I don’t think a lot of them were doing the job that they should be; and so, look, Elon Musk–

COLLINS: What does that say about Congress? I mean, Congress picked these people to do these jobs and have oversight of these agencies and then to report back to Congress; so wouldn’t that be your role as an elected lawmaker — and not just yours, but your colleagues as well — to do that instead of having Elon Musk do it?

GIMENEZ: No, I like Elon Musk doing it because Elon Musk is outside of government and he’s going to look at things in a completely different light, things that maybe these these folks that were in government weren’t going to be looking the same way. Once you’re in government, you have a certain paradigm and you follow that paradigm. Elon Musk doesn’t have that paradigm. He’s looking at things from a completely different perspective.

He’s also fighting and writing code, figuring out the code of the federal government. A lot of these folks don’t have that kind of talent, and so I like what he is doing. Is it all gonna be, you know, rosy and everything’s gonna be great? No. Is he gonna stumble every once in a while? “Hey, I thought that could save money,” and maybe it doesn’t because you actually need that program? Yeah, but the exercise is a good exercise.

Watch above via CNN