Dem Sen. Mur­phy: We Should ‘Come After Elon Musk’ He ‘Made His For­tune Off of Tax­pay­ers’

On Thursday’s broad­cast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Sen. Chris Mur­phy (D‑CT) ques­tioned the effec­tive­ness of the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy and stat­ed that Elon Musk “basi­cal­ly has made his for­tune off of gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies” and Democ­rats should “come after the insur­ance com­pa­nies, the big defense com­pa­nies that are all reap­ing huge amounts of mon­ey off of the gov­ern­ment. Let’s come after Elon Musk, who’s made his for­tune off of tax­pay­ers.”

Mur­phy said, “I’m just not sure that [DOGE] has any­thing to do with break­ing up the sta­tus quo. You’ve put a bil­lion­aire, who basi­cal­ly has made his for­tune off of gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies in charge of decid­ing how the gov­ern­ment should spend its mon­ey. This sounds like either a con job, in which Elon Musk comes out of this with his pro­grams pro­tect­ed, and per­haps his com­peti­tors’ pro­grams tar­get­ed or just a TV show. … So, yes, I think Democ­rats should put on the table how we think we can cut gov­ern­ment. Let’s come after the drug com­pa­nies, come after the insur­ance com­pa­nies, the big defense com­pa­nies that are all reap­ing huge amounts of mon­ey off of the gov­ern­ment. Let’s come after Elon Musk, who’s made his for­tune off of tax­pay­ers. Democ­rats should be involved in the con­ver­sa­tion about gov­ern­ment effi­cien­cy. I just don’t know that this group has any­thing to do with actu­al, mean­ing­ful com­mon­sense cuts. It may be about pro­tect­ing bil­lion­aires from those cuts or it may just be about a pub­lic­i­ty stunt.”

Fol­low Ian Hanchett on Twit­ter @IanHanchett