Elon Musk & son X join Trump in the Oval Office as Don signs order for agencies to work with DOGE in a bid to downsize

ELON Musk took his young son into the Oval Office alongside President Donald Trump as he hit back at DOGE critics. The Tesla chief was seen playing around with X Æ A-Xii, known as X, inside The White House as Trump signed an executive order helping out the new government department. DOGE - which stands for Department of Government Efficiency - is being headed up by the eccentric billionaire as part of his pal Trump's new-look cabinet.

Musk and X joined the President in his famous office ahead of the Republican leaders latest string of executive orders. The main talking point revolved around a DOGE-related order which is reportedly intended to "significantly" scale back the federal workforce. This will push agencies to hire "no more than one employee for every four employees" that leave in a bid to downsize, according to Semafor. The exact details around the order are yet to be released by the White House with Trump not even officially signing it today in front of the cameras.

Instead, he allowed Musk and his son to take centre stage and bask in the limelight for over half an hour. The world's richest man was dressed in a black "Make America Great Again" cap, black t-shirt and overcoat. X went for a smarter look in a tan coat, blue shirt and navy jumper. The four-year-old also went for a thick gold chain that hung across his chest. The SpaceX and Tesla mogul spoke to reporters about DOGE and the criticisms it has faced so far.

Some have blasted Musk for ordering waves of cuts to workforce's across the country as they dubbed the moves as an unconstitutional concentration of power within The White House. Trump set up DOGE with Musk at the helm to ensure federal cost-cutting measures were taken after Musk warned the US would go "bankrupt" without his help. The tech whizz was quizzed over these claims as well as possible conflicts of interest.

He swiftly rejected all of the criticisms and disagreed with the idea that DOGE uses a lack of transparency. Musk admitted "mistakes" will happen within his department during the first few months but he vowed to root out the highest-paid D.C. bureaucrats. He described the process as whittling out an "unelected" bureaucracy. "We do find it sort of odd that, you know, there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position," Musk said.

"Which is what happened in USAID. We're just curious as to where it came from. "Maybe they're very good at investing, in which case we should take their investment advice perhaps.". He later joked that his critics are expecting a "daily proctology exam" over his dealings with the President. As Musk boldly defended himself, Trump sat behind his historic Resolute Desk often glancing over at little X. The toddler spent much of his time in the Oval Office catching the eye of everyone in the room.

At one point he sat on his dad's shoulders and played with his face and hat. On other occasions he grabbed at Musk's clothes, took on a very wide-legged stance and even picked his nose next to Trump. Towards the end of the meeting, X sat on his knees appearing to signal to his dad to wrap things up. All throughout Musk's chat, Trump was seen peering over at X and looking both bewildered and amused at the young boy.

Trump has been busy signing executive orders in the past month since entering office. He signed an executive order on inauguration day to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The President has since declared February 9 Gulf of America Day after he signed a proclamation to officially rename the basin. He confirmed the change while flying over the waters on his way to the Super Bowl. Google Maps has since caved into the President's wishes and renamed the basin on its site.