March 7, 2025 (EIRNS)—A meeting of President Trump and his cabinet yesterday reportedly became contentious when Elon Musk attacked several secretaries for not firing enough staff quickly enough and had harsh exchanges with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, the New York Times reported today. The Times said the meeting was “explosive,” citing interviews with five people “with knowledge of the matter.”
Musk attacked Rubio for not firing “any” staff, and the exchange became quite heated, according to this report. Duffy pushed back against Musk, saying, “I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?” Doug Collins reported that the firing of large numbers of staff at the politically sensitive VA would negatively affect thousands of veterans. Firings should be “strategic,” Collins said—not the result of “wielding a blunt instrument.” On Feb. 22, Musk was seen wielding the chainsaw given him by Argentine President Javier Milei, who boasts of taking a chainsaw to the state budget, and has fired more than 40,000 state-sector workers.
Trump reportedly observed the back-and-forth at the meeting without saying too much, but finally announced that, in the future, the secretaries themselves would make decisions about staff cuts and Elon Musk would serve as an advisor. Musk offered his personal phone number to some of the secretaries should they wish to call him.
Following the meeting, Trump reported on Truth Social that as cabinet secretaries “learn about and understand the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet.’” He described the cabinet meeting as very positive. “It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people. We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done.”
