“It’s not that he’s a Republican,” said President Donald Trump of DOGE head and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “Sometimes I’m not even sure what he is in terms of his philosophies, but he’s a great guy,” he added in comments to the Business Roundtable.  

That said, POTUS, in remarks to the group of CEOs of the biggest U.S. companies, defended Musk and said the architect of the Department of Government Efficiency, which has been slashing federal jobs. “He’s done a great job and he shouldn’t be sacrificed or have to suffer because he wants to help the government.”

He did his part to help, purchasing a shiny new red Tesla Model S sedan on the White House driveway earlier Tuesday in a show of support. He said, “Wow,” according to the AP, as he eased into the driver’s seat, “That’s beautiful.”

Musk hopped into the passenger side, joking about giving the Secret Service “a heart attack.” Trump told reporters he would write a check for the car, the AP said. The retail  price is $80k. “It’s a great product we have to celebrate him,” the President said.

Tesla stock has been pummeled since Musk joined Trump and there have been incidents of Teslas being vandalized. Asked by a reporter on the White House lawn if he would consider designating individuals responsible for acts of violence against Tesla dealers as domestic terrorists, he said yes. “I will do that. I will do it. I am going to stop them.”

Trump told the Business Roundtable after during a post-meeting Q&A where reporters were briefly allowed, that even he was surprised by the force of Musk’s chainsaw as it’s ripped through agencies from U.S.A.I.D. to the FDA, IRS, CDC, FEMA, the CIA, DOJ, NOAA, the EPA, the Pentagon, the Departments of Interior, Veterans Affairs, Social Security, Agriculture and Education, the Pentagon and more. He praised Musk’s “big ideas.”

“We’d say we want you to cut down the size of your agency by 2% … and he came in and he said 80%.”

“We had to do it carefully. And we had some little hiccups. Not big hiccups. But we saved a tremendous amount of money for the future … I don’t know if it’s going to reach [the stated goal of] $1 trillion, but it’s going to reach a lot.”

The sudden, deep layoffs engineered by an unelected billionaire are causing economic hardship and anger in the federal workforce, which spans the nation. According to reports, agencies in some cases had to reverse firings of essential workers and reinstate them.

The most pressing questions, however, from the group of CEOs, surrounds on-again off-again tariffs that have thrown stock markets lower disrupted relations with trading partners. Trump said tariffs – or taxes on imports – would drive manufacturing back to the U.S. That is the ultimate goal, he said, even if the tariffs raise prices in the short term after Trump ran against the higher prices of Biden-era, Covid-induced inflation.

“The tariffs are having a tremendously positive impact,” Trump said, citing investments in the U.S. by Honda, Apple and others. “They are looking all over the place … because there is a good spirit, there’s a new, a renewed spirit and … they don’t want to pay 25%, whatever it may be, it may go up higher.”

“The biggest win is if they move into our country. That is a bigger win than the tariffs themselves.”

Tump has hit or threatened Canada, Mexico and China, the nation’s three biggest trading partners, with tariffs of various kinds starting earlier this year, last week, this week and [for every country in the world] next month – allies and adversaries. The uncertaingy has been driving the stock market nuts and dragging on consumer sentiment.