Trump Contradicts His Own White House’s Legal Filing — Admits ‘I Put a Man Named Elon Musk in Charge’ of DOGE

President Donald Trump acknowledged Elon Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — in contradiction with a legal filing from his own White House.

Speaking at a conference in Miami on Wednesday, Trump identified Elon Musk as the man “in charge” of DOGE — the agency which has recommended mass firings across the federal government.

“I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge,” Thank you, Elon, for doing it. And he’s doing a great job.”

That comment stands in direct contradiction to the assertion made by the White House in a legal filing Monday. Joshua Fisher — the director of the White House’s Office of Administration — identified Musk, in a sworn affidavit, as “not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or the U.S. DOGE Service temporary organization.”

“Mr. Musk is an employee of the White House office,” Fisher wrote. “He holds that position as a non-career Special Government Employee (“SGE”). In that job, Mr. Musk is a Senior Advisor to the President.”

Fisher added that Musk has “no actual authority to make government decisions himself.”

The White House, on several occasions this week, has failed to produce the name of a person who is technically in charge of DOGE — when asked directly by reporters. And Wired reported that DOGE’s own employees don’t even know who’s running the outfit.

Musk’s technical role is likely to be a major point of contention in the many legal battles involving DOGE. If he is deemed to not have a role with the cost-cutting outfit, he may be able to avoid legal scrutiny.

But Trump, on Wednesday, seemed to remove any doubt about who’s running the show at DOGE.

“He’s a very serious person,” Trump said. “And he’s a very high IQ people (sic). You know, I like high-IQ people. Not all have to be. But, you know, it’d be nice to have some people up there that — he’s a seriously high IQ individual. Now he’s got his faults also, I will tell you that. But not too many of them, which is now really waging war on government waste, fraud and abuse.”

Watch above, via CSPAN