New York Times exposes controversial meeting in the Oval Office

The New York Times wrote: "Marco Rubio was furious. The US Secretary of State, sitting next to the president in the White House Cabinet Room, listened to the series of attacks by the world's richest man. Elon Musk, sitting around the Oval Office table across from Rubio, targeted him and accused him of failing to reduce his forces."

Elon Musk, the US Secretary of Efficiency, has been the target of complaints and criticism for his unbridled authority for using his power to push through a massive layoff campaign in various departments and ministries and for pressuring agency officials to do so.

According to the New York Times, in the meeting held on Thursday, Musk accused Rubio of not firing any of his employees in the past 45 days and of disrupting his plans to massively reduce the number of federal employees.

Musk told Rubio: “You didn’t fire anyone. Maybe the only person you fired was an employee of the Department of Efficiency.”

The American newspaper stated: “Rubio has been angry with him in private meetings for a few weeks, since Elon Musk’s team effectively shut down an entire agency under Rubio’s control, the United States Agency for International Development. But this time, Rubio vented his anger in a special cabinet meeting on Thursday with the US president and 20 other officials, a meeting whose details had not been previously released.

The dispute escalated after Donald Trump told his cabinet leaders that they themselves were responsible for making the final decision about the employees under their agency, not Elon Musk, who works as a White House adviser and head of the Office of Government Productivity.

This is while Trump had previously made a contradictory statement: “Elon will make the cuts if the leaders of the agencies do not cut their costs.”

At the meeting on Thursday, Rubio countered by telling Musk that 1,500 State Department employees were sent to early retirement. According to a report by the New York Times, he even sarcastically said that Elon Musk apparently wants these people to be rehired so that he can fire them in a show!

Rubio insisted that Elon Musk was not telling the truth, saying, “So what happens to the 1,500-plus State Department officials who were sent into early retirement? Aren’t they considered to be laid-off? Is Musk trying to rehire all of these people so he can fire them in a dramatic way?”

Musk reportedly was not impressed, telling Rubio, “You’re only good on TV.”

During the argument, the US president sat with his hands on his chest and “watched like he was watching a tennis match!”

But after the argument became so heated, Trump finally stepped in to defend Rubio, saying, “He’s doing a great job and he’s got a lot to deal with. He’s very busy and he’s always traveling or on TV and he’s got an organization to run. So, we’ve just got to work together.”

According to AFP, the meeting was held in the wake of numerous complaints about the Government Productivity Agency, which is controlled by Elon Musk, and its plans for massive layoffs. Musk and several other senior Trump administration officials have been at odds with each other, and the officials have accused Elon Musk’s young team, which is mainly made up of young Silicon Valley workers (the US computer industry), of exceeding their authority.

At the meeting, Trump showed for the first time that he was willing to limit Elon Musk’s efforts, which has prompted legal complaints and even concerns from Republican lawmakers, and sometimes their complaints to the president himself, the New York Times wrote.

Thursday’s meeting, which was suddenly scheduled for Wednesday evening, was a sign that Trump was paying attention to the growing complaints about Musk. But he tried to offer something to each side by praising Musk and complimenting his cabinet ministers. (Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was one of those who did not attend the meeting due to his clashes and tensions with Elon Musk’s team.) The US president made it clear that he still supported Musk’s mission, but now it was time for him to adjust his approach a little.

In this regard, Trump said: “From now on, only the secretaries themselves will be in charge of the forces, and Musk’s team will only advise.”