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TIME magazine tried to take a dig at President Donald Trump on Friday, as they release their new magazine, with Elon Musk on the cover… sitting at the resolute desk in the Oval Office.
TIME then wrote an article bashing Musk, who Trump has appointed to lead the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency, with the specific purpose to find and eliminate wasteful government spending.
The article, titled, “Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington,” begins as follows:
The standoff at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue was not much of a spectacle. On the first day of February, a handful of men working for Elon Musk had come to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a few blocks from the White House, demanding full access to its headquarters. The agency’s staff refused. No guns were drawn. No punches thrown. Nobody involved the police. But in these early days of the Trump Administration, perhaps no other scene revealed more clearly the forces reshaping America’s government.
On one side stood an institution with a 64-year history, a $35 billion budget, and a mission enshrined in federal law. On the other stood Musk’s political wrecking crew. They identified themselves as members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a collection of temporary staffers with no charter, no website, and no clear legal authority. Its power derives from Musk, the wealthiest person on the planet, who has been deputized to dismantle vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy—slashing budgets, gutting the civil service, and stripping independent agencies of the ability to impede the President’s objectives.
USAID leadership had allowed Musk’s team, a group of his young and eager followers, to spend several days inside their headquarters at the end of January. “The DOGE kids,” as some of the staffers called them in private, walked the halls with clipboards in their hands, examining desks and questioning managers, according to several USAID officials who described the events to TIME. But as the weekend arrived, their demands—including access to sensitive facilities designed to store classified information—went too far for the agency’s heads of security. The men from DOGE threatened to call the U.S. Marshals and have them clear the building. They also informed Musk about the problem. “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote to his 215 million followers on his social media platform, X, soon after. “Time for it to die.”
TIME’s new cover: Inside Elon Musk’s war on Washington https://t.co/95Qictx4zP pic.twitter.com/QZ73CZqtnM
— TIME (@TIME) February 7, 2025
President Trump was then asked by a reporter in the Oval Office Friday morning what he thought about the TIME cover photo showing Elon Musk sitting at his desk.
Trump first quipped, “Is TIME magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.”
“Elon is doing a great job. He’s finding tremendous fraud and waste,” Trump continued.
WATCH his full response below:
Reporter: “Mr. President, do you have any reaction to the new Time Magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?”
President Trump: “Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that … Elon is doing a great job.” pic.twitter.com/MwvM9MhzlZ
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 7, 2025
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