- Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Elon Musk engaged in a heated argument during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, sources told the New York Times. Rubio was reportedly frustrated that Musk and DOGE slashed USAID, an agency Rubio oversaw.
In a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the world’s richest man Elon Musk exchanged verbal jabs at each other, the New York Times reported.
With Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency busy slashing the federal workforce in recent weeks, the billionaire told Rubio that he has not done enough with his own staff.
Musk said Rubio hasn’t fired anybody, then quipped that the one person the Secretary of State fired was a DOGE staffer, sources told the Times.
Rubio had been privately furious with Musk for weeks, the report added, after DOGE effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was under Rubio’s oversight.
In the meeting, Rubio could no longer hold his tongue.
He pointed to the more than 1,500 State Department officials who opted for early retirement in buyouts, suggesting they counted as layoffs, then asked if Musk wanted to rehire those people to make a public demonstration of firing them again.
Rubio then went on to present his plans for reorganizing the State Department.
Musk took to the offense and belittled Rubio, telling him he was “good on TV,” an implication that he isn’t good at anything else, according to the Times.
President Donald Trump played bystander during the back-and-forth, then defended Rubio by saying he is doing a “great job.”
Trump went on to say that Rubio has a lot on his plate, as he’s always traveling and on TV, adding that he has an agency to run, the report said. He concluded by emphasizing that everyone needs to work together.
Amid multiple federal lawsuits against the cost-cutting endeavor, Trump said that he supports DOGE, but that it’s time to take a more refined approach.
Trump said DOGE and Musk will only advise, and that staffing decisions will be up to the secretaries.
“As President Trump said, this was a great and productive meeting amongst members of his team to discuss cost cutting measures and staffing across the federal government. Everyone is working as one team to help President Trump deliver on his promise to make our government more efficient,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fortune in a statement.
The U.S. DOGE Service and the State Department did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
