President Donald Trump’s chief of staff has put DOGE leader Elon Musk on notice—making it clear that he must give her a heads up about his wild schemes to cut down on government spending.
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who has earned the nickname the “Ice Maiden,” confronted Musk and asked him to run his team’s plans by her to avoid surprising her team, two sources familiar with the conversation told Reuters.
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Since the conversation, Musk had been providing Wiles with daily updates until Trump urged Musk to “get more aggressive” with DOGE in a TruthSocial post Saturday.
Musk then shocked the White House with an email blast sent to millions of federal employees asking them justify their jobs. In a post on X, Musk threatened the workers that a lack of reply would be seen as a resignation.
Musk and DOGE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, disputed the wire service’s reporting, and said the sources are “wrong” in a statement, adding, “The White House was not caught off guard.”
Musk, for his part, said in Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that he had asked Trump directly if his team could “send out an email to everyone, just saying: ‘What did you get done last week?’ The president said yes. So I did that.”
A source told Reuters that Trump didn’t sign off on the email: Trump merely “likes letting Elon be Elon,” they said.
Questions have been raised about Musk’s role in the Trump administration after the White House said that the billionaire is not the administrator or even an employee of the DOGE cost-cutting agency.
The White House has described him as a special government employee or senior adviser to Trump.
Wiles, who started working with Trump in March 2021, said she would not tolerate troublemakers in the administration.
“I don’t welcome people who want to work solo or be a star,” she said in an interview with Axios in January.
Some agencies have started to push back against Musk’s power grab.
FBI director Kash Patel and national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard both told their staff not to respond to Musk’s email.
Cabinet heads have reportedly been calling Wiles about the email, and others have complained to the White House about Musk’s outreach to their employees.
At least six members of Congress have expressed concern about DOGE overreach, according to Reuters.
