Elon Musk will attend President Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday as reports surface that Cabinet officials are growing weary of his unbridled approach toward slashing the federal bureaucracy.
The inclusion of Mr. Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, is somewhat unusual. He is not a Cabinet-level official and DOGE is not an official government department but rather an independent advisory board.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Mr. Musk will participate in the meeting to update Cabinet officials on DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts.
“Elon – considering he is working alongside the president and our Cabinet secretaries – this entire administration will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE’s efforts and how all of the Cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud, and abuse at their respective agencies,” she said.
Mr. Musk’s participation comes amid a power struggle between him and the highest-ranking Trump officials. The Cabinet officials had to undergo a lengthy Senate confirmation process and learn about their new agencies.
Mr. Musk is viewed as “a special government employee” who serves as an adviser to the president and did not have to go through Senate confirmation.
On Saturday, at Mr. Musk’s behest, the Office of Personnel Management emailed roughly 2.3 million federal workers ordering each to write back with five bullet points detailing what they accomplished last week. The email said that failure to respond would be viewed as a resignation and the employee would lose their job.
Cabinet officials were quick to push back on the email. Defense Department employees, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were told to ignore the email. State Department workers under Secretary of State Marco Rubio were also told not to respond.
Other agencies that told their employees not to bother include those under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Homeland Security under Kristi Noem, the FBI and Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
All those department heads will be at Mr. Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The White House has given few details about the meeting which will occur roughly five weeks into his second administration. During Mr. Trump’s first term, he waited until June before holding a Cabinet meeting.
Mr. Trump’s first Cabinet meeting in 2017 was an unusual affair with officials using the event to heap lavish praise upon the president.
Some of the more effusive comments raised eyebrows, including one from then Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus.
“On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President, we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people,” Mr. Priebus said. “And we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.