Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday criticized defense spending in a post on the social platform X, saying that tech billionaire Elon Musk “is right.”
“Elon Musk is right. The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions,” Sanders said in his post.
“Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change,” he added.
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Last month, President-elect Trump appointed Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy as the heads of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which aims to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures” and restructure federal agencies.
DOGE would “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” and work alongside the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the president-elect said.
On Monday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) suggested in an interview on CNN that Democrats could work with Musk’s DOGE on cutting the defense budget. The California Democrat criticized “waste, fraud and abuse” in the defense budget and said the Defense Department “has failed the last six or seven audits.”
Khanna also posted a clip of his CNN appearance from that day on X.
“When it comes to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse and opening the 5 primes to more competition, there are Democrats on [the House Armed Services Committee] who will work with @elonmusk and @DOGE,” Khanna said in the post.
“Cool!” Musk replied to Khanna’s post.
The Hill has reached out to the Defense Department for comment.