Americans see the federal government as rife with corruption, inefficiency and red tape — but they’re less sure about whether Elon Musk is the right person to fix it.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults strongly or somewhat approve of President Trump’s creation of an advisory body on government efficiency, which Musk is helming. About 4 in 10 disapprove, while the rest were neutral or didn’t know enough to say. (The poll was conducted before Vivek Ramaswamy announced he would no longer be involved in the group.)
The goal of the advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is to expose fraudulent and wasteful spending across the federal bureaucracy, and its leaders have floated a range of possible ways to cut costs, including eliminating entire agencies. But although most agree that the federal government is facing major problems, many Americans also have an unfavorable view of Musk and are hesitant about the Republican president relying on billionaires for advice about government policy.
As the plans take more concrete shape, the poll shows that Americans are ambivalent about some of the changes that Trump and his team have mentioned in the past few months — including eliminating large numbers of federal jobs and moving federal agencies outside Washington. Substantial shares don’t have an opinion, indicating that there’s plenty of room for opinion to shift in either direction.
A return-to-office policy for federal workers — which was one of Trump’s first executive actions on Inauguration Day — is fairly popular.
Americans see a broken federal government — but aren’t as concerned about the ‘deep state’
As Trump sweeps into his second term with promises to cut regulations and reduce the role of government bureaucrats, most Americans think the federal government has serious problems. About two-thirds of U.S. adults say corruption and inefficiency are “major problems” in the federal government, and roughly 6 in 10 say the same about red tape, such as government regulations and bureaucracy.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to think these are major problems — but a majority of Democrats still agree that corruption and inefficiency are significant challenges for the government.
But despite Trump’s claims that career federal workers resisted his policies during his first term, concern about civil servants who are unwilling to implement the president’s agenda is not as high. Only about one-third of Americans say this is a big problem in the government.
Many dislike Musk and mistrust billionaires’ influence broadly
Musk was a prominent part of Trump’s inauguration ceremonies — given a seat inside the Capitol Rotunda for the event, then speaking at a rally shortly after Trump was sworn in.
About one-third of Americans have a favorable view of Musk — a billionaire and the world’s richest person — which is down slightly from December. Americans’ views of Musk and Trump have a fair amount of overlap: About 8 in 10 Americans share the same view of both men, whether positive or negative. About half of Americans have an unfavorable view of both Musk and Trump.
Some Americans may also be wary of Musk’s prominence. U.S. adults broadly think it’s a bad thing if the president relies on billionaires for advice about government policy, according to the poll. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say this would be a “very” or “somewhat” bad thing, while only about 1 in 10 call it a very or somewhat good thing, and about 3 in 10 are neutral.
Return-to-office for federal workers is more popular than cutting federal jobs
One of Trump’s first executive orders on Monday was a broad directive for federal employees to return to the office. That was one of several policies aimed at increasing government efficiency that Trump and Musk floated before his inauguration, including a broader push to eliminate federal jobs.
A sizable share of Americans don’t have an opinion on either proposal, which means there’s plenty of room for views to shift as Trump begins to take action. But firings are less popular than a broad return-to-work mandate. About 4 in 10 Americans oppose eliminating a large number of federal jobs, according to the poll, while about 3 in 10 are in favor. But about 4 in 10 favor requiring federal workers to return to the office five days a week, and only about 2 in 10 are opposed.
Trump has said moving agencies outside Washington will help him shatter the “deep state,” a supposed network of mainly nonelected government officials influencing government policy, and he began moving some federal jobs out of the area toward the end of his first term. But he may need to attempt this on a larger scale before Americans decide what they think about it. Nearly half of U.S. adults in the poll were neutral on moving federal agencies outside Washington, while about one-quarter were in favor and a similar share were opposed.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,147 adults was conducted Jan. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
