Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says DOGE was popular but Elon Musk 'was not'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke to CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday morning and was asked about tech billionaire Elon Musk's latest undertaking: the launching of a new political party to rival the Democrats, the Republicans, and the MAGA wing of the GOP that he was up until very recently fully supporting.

"Before I let you go," Bash began, "it's not a big secret that you had your differences with Elon Musk when he was working with the administration. He announced this weekend that he is starting a new political party. Does that worry the Trump administration?"

"Look," Bessent said, "the principles of DOGE were very popular. I think if you look at the polling, Elon was not. So I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone.

"So I imagine that those boards of directors did not like this announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to work on his business activities and not his political activities."

Musk launched his new America Party after working hard to get President Donald Trump elected, joining the administration to cut costs with the Department of Government Efficiency, and becoming disillusioned when Trump and Congressional Republicans backed a spending bill.

Musk believed that the spending bill should have had more provisions for cuts across the federal government. When questions arose about his attempt to break the two-party system, he said "Not hard tbh" after registering his party with the Federal Communication Commission. 

Claiming that "the people want change" in the form of a decreased national debt, Musk has said, "What really matters is that government spending is not far in excess of government revenue." At a March 2025 town hall in Wisconsin, at which he was trying to help the campaign of a conservative state supreme court justice, Musk said he was worried about the government spending on interest alone, which exceeds the budget of the Defense Department.

That judge lost the race and a leftist was elected to the state supreme court. Musk shared a post from a tech investor who asked "Is this the America Party platform? -reduce debt, responsible spending only -modernize military with ai/robotics -pro tech, accelerate to win in ai -less regulation across board but especially in energy -free speech -pro natalist -centrist policies everywhere else If so where do we send our donations?"

"Yeah!" Musk replied.