Since #ElonMusk’s so-called #DOGE took over important govt #technology teams within the #GSA & what was formally known as the #USDS, around 200 technologists have either resigned or been fired, jeopardizing around a decade’s worth of work dedicated to everything from #PublicHealth to #passport applications.

The meeting was a potential turning point after the frenetic first weeks of #Trump’s 2nd term. It yielded the first significant indication that Trump is willing to put some limits on #Musk, whose efforts have become the subject of several lawsuits & prompted concerns from #Republican lawmakers, some of whom have complained directly to Trump.

Throughout all of this, #Trump sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.

After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Trump finally intervened to defend #Rubio as doing a “great job.” Rubio has a lot to deal with, he said. “He is very busy, he is always traveling & on TV, & he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together.”

#MarcoRubio had been privately furious w/ #Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under #Rubio’s control: the #USAID. But, in the extraordinary #cabinet meeting in front of #Trump & around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Rubio got his grievances off his chest.

#MarcoRubio was incensed. Here he was in the #Cabinet Room of the White House, the Secy of #State, seated beside the president & listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world.

Seated diagonally opposite, #ElonMusk was letting #Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff.

You have fired “nobody,” Musk told Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Musk’s #DOGE.

The plan for his #DOGE was mapped out in a series of closely held meetings in Palm Beach, FL, & through early #intelligence-gathering efforts in Washington.

Without ceding control of his companies, the richest man in the world has embedded his engineers & aides inside the government’s critical #digital #infrastructure, moving with a swiftness that has stunned #CivilServants.