WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s most powerful adviser, Elon Musk, has made a rare public appearance at the White House to defend the swift and extensive cuts he’s pushing across the federal government while acknowledging there may be mistakes. He appeared in the Oval Office with Trump as the president praised Musk’s work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency and signed an an executive order to continue downsizing the federal workforce. Musk, taking questions for the first time from reporters since he joined the Trump administration as a special government employee with sprawling influence over federal agencies, defended DOGE’s work as “common sense” and “not draconian or radical.”
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