Musk looks at auditing the Federal Reserve

OXON HILL, Md.—Elon Musk on Thursday offered hints about the work to come, including auditing the Federal Reserve, as his Department of Government Efficiency bulldozes through federal agencies in its effort to identify and implement budget and staffing cuts under authority from President Trump.

Asked if he plans to audit the Federal Reserve, Musk said yes without offering elaboration. He also added fuel to the possibility of giving payouts to the public from some of the budget savings that DOGE identifies. Trump said Wednesday that he was weighing the idea.

“It’s money that’s taken away from things that are destructive to the country and organizations that hate you, [and given] to you…The spoils of battle, you know,” said the Tesla CEO before a supportive crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, without identifying any organization. CPAC is a decades-old, annual gathering of conservatives that in recent years has become a celebration of Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

The billionaire also said that he would be looking into whether there is gold in Fort Knox, the depository in Kentucky for U.S. gold reserves, an idea that was raised a day earlier by Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Thursday that there is an audit every year and that “all the gold is there.”

Musk made a theatrical entrance on the CPAC stage, dressed in black, wearing sunglasses and a black MAGA hat and pumping his fists in the air. In a surprise gesture, he was then joined by President Javier Milei of Argentina, who presented Musk with a symbol of Milei’s own efforts to shred what he calls wasteful spending in his own government: a chain saw.

Musk held up the power tool and said: “This is the chain saw for bureaucracy.”

Musk didn’t explain his plans for looking at Fed operations during the onstage interview by Rob Schmitt of Newsmax, a conservative news and opinion cable channel. The Federal Reserve has its financials audited every year, and it publishes them online.

Musk, who backed Trump financially during the presidential campaign, had recently written on his X platform that “all aspects of the government must be fully transparent and accountable to the people. No exceptions, including, if not especially, the Federal Reserve.”

Asked how much waste he could find in the federal budget, Musk said, “It’s like being in a room…and the walls, the roof and the floor are all targets. So, it’s like, you’re going to close your eyes and shoot in any direction.”

DOGE says its cost cutting has amassed can’t refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress or fire officials whose terms of service are set by Congress.

Write to Aaron Zitner at aaron.zitner@wsj.com