As tech billionaire Elon Musk expands his influence over more than a dozen U.S. federal agencies, frustration is rising among some senior aides to President Donald Trump, who want more coordination from Musk’s team as he shrinks the U.S. government, according to four people familiar with the tension.
Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and her team sometimes felt out of the loop as Musk’s so-called Government Efficiency Department seeks to lay off thousands of federal workers, gain access to confidential data, and disrupt operations, the sources said. One of them said Wiles and some of her top aides recently discussed these issues with Musk.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Musk predicted alignment between himself, his tight-knit DOGE staff, and Trump. But the hidden tension in the relationship with some White House officials highlights the potential difficulties for Trump in balancing his core team with Musk’s DOGE staff as they upend agencies in a broad restructuring that has challenged Congressional authority and faced a series of lawsuits.
In a recent conversation, Wiles and her staff delivered a message to Musk: “We need to send a message about all of this. We need to loop in,” a source familiar with the situation said. Reuters could not determine the exact date of their discussion or what changes, if any, Musk made after that conversation. The source added that Trump himself continues to speak positively about Musk in front of donors and others.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment on the situation. An official familiar with the matter dismissed the description of tension, noting that initial “operational delays” had been smoothed out. According to the official, Musk sends Wiles reports at the end of each day, and they communicate by phone almost every day.
The official also added that it was Musk’s idea to hold a press conference on Tuesday in the Oval Office with his four-year-old son X by his side. “He showed up with his kid. We rolled with it,” the official said.
On Tuesday, Trump issued an order that expands Musk’s power over the federal bureaucracy, requiring federal agencies to cooperate with DOGE in making significant workforce cuts and limiting hiring. The order calls for DOGE to appoint a “team leader” at each government agency who will oversee all hiring decisions.
“This is one team,” White House press secretary Karoline Levitt told reporters on Wednesday. “Elon Musk is serving at the request of the president, just like everyone else on this team. He receives directives directly from the president of the United States.”
At the Oval Office press conference, where Trump was standing next to him, Musk defended his role as an unelected official who has been granted unprecedented power by the Republican president to dismantle parts of the U.S. government. He told reporters that he talks to Trump almost daily, noting that his work is in the public’s and democracy’s best interest.
“People voted for big government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” Musk said. “All of our actions are as transparent as possible.”
However, DOGE operates in deep secrecy. The organization provides almost no information about whom it is hiring, where it is working, and what actions it is taking in government agencies. It releases little information about its activities, only citing dollar figures for proposed cuts in specific agencies and few specifics. DOGE has stunned federal workers by sending its members to at least 15 agencies and gaining access to confidential data. As a “special government employee,” Musk’s financial disclosure documents will not be made public, the White House said.
One source noted that Wiles is not upset about Musk’s efforts to liquidate government agencies and cut the federal workforce, but more about his approach. Wiles, one of two co-chairs of Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, wants Musk and DOGE to inform her team and work in a more organized manner, the source, who is directly familiar with the matter, said.
“There’s some frustration, but to say it’s a schism,” the person noted.
A fourth source, a close associate of senior White House officials, described the friction as more serious and said Wiles’ subordinates had expressed discomfort with information Musk posted on his social media platform X before it was cleared by senior White House staff. “They will definitely find out about it on Twitter.”