this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
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Elon Musk admits he “got carried away” working inside Donald Trump’s administration as the unelected director of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, where he implemented mass firings and radically cut federal spending.

“I think I got a little too involved in politics. I got carried away, frankly,” he told The Economist in a wide-ranging interview published Thursday, but offered few specifics on what he regretted.

But the world’s wealthiest man — who pumped millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign before he was deputized to oversee the president’s brutal cost-cutting operation — defended the work of DOGE and his dismantling of the nation’s global aid agency that he once promised to put through a “wood chipper.”

“We need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities. And I got a lot of flack for this, obviously,” he said.

I wonder if he can just see the writing on the wall, or if he was actually using a cannon to kill a fly? Maybe its that SpaceX isn't doing so hot? Maybe its the investigation related to tRump going on about how Musk "really knows those voting machines" and how they'll "never have to vote again".

Either way, people are dead because of him. We won't forget, and there will be an accounting for this.

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[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 216 points 4 days ago (8 children)

I was a government contractor for four years. I made really good money, worked from home, and had really good benefits. A year ago, Elon and Trump decided to stop paying the contract I was on. Between outsourcing and AI, I couldn't find anyone to hire me. I had to work in a grocery store for six months with ten years of web development and project management experience. I start my job as a mailman on Monday. I'll never forgive them and forsake anyone associated with them. Until the seas dry and the land breaks, I wish suffering and damnation upon them.

[–] Stormy@thelemmy.club 133 points 4 days ago (17 children)

I was a woman in the military.

I can't even look at myself in the mirror anymore, haven't left the house for a week.

I wish them a jail cell.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 56 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I hope your luck will be better than mine.

[–] Stormy@thelemmy.club 66 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It won't be. My career is ruined. It's hopeless.

We can be pissed and destroyed together though. 🤝

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 49 points 4 days ago (3 children)
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[–] firebyte@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Have you considered a lateral transfer?

Some countries, including Canada and Australia, will accept international applicants providing they meet certain criteria. Australia particularly offers pathways to citizenship too.

https://www.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families/military-life-cycle/lateral-recruits

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[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

it's infuriating seeing the two assholes cutting everything and destroying the lifes of millions of people for literal pennies, then wasting trillions on a useless war that has only economic downsides, just because bibi asked it nicely

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[–] treehugger6@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

He is responsible for deaths of millions of people. He is a repulsive disguisting psychopath. A murderer.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 30 points 3 days ago

No forgiveness, no mercy.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 111 points 4 days ago (3 children)

According to the estimates of Brooke Nichols, DOGE cuts to foreign aid programs had led to some 300,000 deaths by May 2025, mostly of children. By February 2026, when her counter that estimated the number of deaths was retired, the numbers were kept at the one-year mark from when the cuts began: 781,343 deaths caused by the funding discontinuation.

Source

Fuck him.

781,343 deaths.

You don't just get to go "oops!" and walk away.

Nearly eight hundred thousand dead in the first year. Probably much more by now.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 35 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

He's still 'a little too involved' in politics. He's flinging his shit around the UK and EU now, acting like he knows best.

Sounds to me like he's admitting culpability for his crimes though. Some prosecutor should get on that.

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[–] Polyphilic@lemmy.ca 19 points 3 days ago

Apparently whats sensible isnt monitoring threats to food production, of disease outbreaks, its bombing Arabs...

I hate this timeline

[–] FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Let’s fucking kill him!!!!

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[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 57 points 3 days ago

"Sorry everyone, just got swept up in the moment. No hard feelings, right?" -- A. Hitler

[–] kurmudgeon@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago

Elon Musk is a colossal fucking moron. A pure complete dipshit. Why people keep giving this stupid fuck money is beyond me. He is an egotistical, narcissistic, racist, elitist, bigoted asshole. Let's just all keep throwing $$$ at this piece of shit.

[–] dasrael@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd love to see a mob get carried away with him in return. That sure would be amusing to watch. I highly doubt justice will ever be dispensed his way otherwise.

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[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I can't find the one they printed 6 ft tall on the bus stop

[–] EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app 54 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Proposed headline: Elon Musk says, "PlEASe like me PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE every body I need you to like me I'll do literally anything l can be ultra whatever wing because I believe in nothing except that you should all like me plEASE LIKE ME"

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[–] Linktank@lemmy.today 36 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The fact that there isn't a well funded group actively hunting this man with the intent to mutilate him to death is somewhat shocking to me.

[–] some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago

For real. I’d help crowdfund it.

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[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

may this fucker be reincarnated into every last person who was denied USAID and died as a result this past year

if there is some form of spiritual punishement in the after life his consiousness gets to witness every suffering. in excruciating detail.

[–] knife@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd settle for him being sent to prison

[–] SalmonTractor@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Take all his money and assets, distribute them to every citizen in the US that isn’t a billionaire, and send him penniless into the streets. Prison is too good for him.

Edit: with zero access to social programs.

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[–] Folstar@lemmus.org 12 points 3 days ago

Reminder: The USA passed the False Claims Act in 1778 and later developed a full legal framework for combating fraud in 1863 with the Lincoln Law. Fraud at the federal level had a solution that worked time and time again for CENTURIES.

[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

They got everything they wanted. The country is in a death spiral toward Somalia-style libertarianism, and it can't be stopped.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"Sorry everyone. Fascism just makes me feel so good, ya know?"

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If this guy ever chokes on a fish bone and dies, the grand, grand, grand majority of people who react in any way will be celebrating.

Imagine being that much of a piece of shit.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I wish he got carried away… in a pine box.

[–] Cheeseballll1@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (3 children)

PoS deserves a burlap sack.

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[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Cool. Now pay back reparations for all the damage that you've caused. You can afford it.

[–] zarathustrad@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can the American People file a class action suit?

Take his entire net worth.

That's roughly $3,000 per person for all 341 million people.

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[–] GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 35 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If there were any justice, he would be convicted and face the death penalty. He's a menace to humanity.

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[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

Hate it when the immigrant billionaires come and makes everyone's life worse

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He's a Pirate, and he deserves a Pirate's fate.

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He belongs in federal prison.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

Get him the Epstein cell!

[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 22 points 3 days ago

Fucking asshole...

[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 3 days ago

He murdered millions.

[–] sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Only hundreds of thousands of children paid the price with their lives.

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[–] Polisheocket@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 days ago

He ruins thousands of lives with layoffs and says whoops? Hate that man,

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Strange way of saying gross incompetence.

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[–] kibblebits@quokk.au 24 points 4 days ago

Hur Dee Hur. Forgot y’all’s was real people down in that k-hole of “the world is a simulation”

[–] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

“We need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities. And I got a lot of flack for this, obviously,” he said.

Really? That's why you got flack?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but you got flack from me not for making sure money is being spent in sensible ways. I gave you some flack for being a self-dealing, child-killing, own-fart-smelling, public data-stealing, ketamine-addicted Nazi fascist sociopath who not only wielded your deluded political persecution complex as a weapon for punishing innocent people, you did so without even giving them the dignity of your actual attention unaided by AI.

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[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

This article tries to make him sound better than he was too. "where he implemented mass firings and radically cut federal spending."

He didn't radically cut federal spending. Federal spending isn't down, he just fired people and the money stayed the same really.

Let's say the CDC that is struggling to track this parasite presumed in lettuce(cyclosporiasis) which was tracked since 1997. Why, well Kennedy told them not to track it anymore in July 2025. July 2026, largest number of cases ever recorded.

The CDC fired ~3200 people, roughly 25% of their staff. Yet the budget request for the CDC in 2026 isn't really any different than 2025, 2024 etc. Maybe a fair comparison would be comparing the 2018, 2019 time period during Trump's first admin to now, the CDC budget is essentially the same when you adjust it for inflation over that time.

Full federal budget estimates look like

2024 budget: 6.8 trillion

2025 budget: 7 trillion

2026 we are at 5.52 trillion including June with 6 months left

So it surely doesn't look like he "radically cut federal spending"... He just radically cut federal employment, and they are still spending the money.

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[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 days ago

Those are some insightful comments from the world's first Nazi trillionaire white supremacist.

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