Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he was backing the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to some extent, given the inefficiency of the federal government, noting that it was too early to say how the initiative would eventually impact the U.S. economy.
DOGE, led by Elon Musk, is attempting to identify and root out fraud and waste from the federal government.
When asked whether he supports DOGE’s efforts, he replied, “Yes,” but clarified that “it’s too binary to say support or not.”
Talking about government inefficiency, Dimon said it is “not just waste and fraud” that are the issue but also the outcomes of government actions.
“Why are we spending the money on these things? Are we getting what we deserve? What should we change?” he asked, according to the outlet.
“Remember, it was tried by Al Gore and Bill Clinton. It was tried by a bunch of other folks in the past. Yes, they should try. You have to understand that, whenever you go to any big institution or the government, the bureaucracy pushes back on everything. And they will here. Every little thing, they’re going to push back on. So, you have to be strong if you’re going to do it.”
Dimon said he hopes the initiative will be “quite successful.” However, he said that if DOGE’s actions amount to overreach, then “the courts should stop it.”
DOGE is still in the very early stages “to tell exactly what it’s going to mean and how it’s going to affect the economy, ” Dimon said.
President Donald Trump has said that even more needs to be done.
DOGE Savings, Threatened Employees
According to the DOGE website, the initiative has saved an estimated $65 billion as of Feb. 25.This savings is a “combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings,” it states.
The Department of Education, the General Services Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency are the agencies where most savings have been made so far.
The Department of State, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Transportation have made the least savings so far.
DOGE has faced significant opposition, with critics ranging from government unions to political opponents, who argue that it probes federal agencies without congressional oversight.
“If Donald Trump had said that we’re going to have an agency that sweepingly fires millions of federal employees, to delete agencies with a flick of the switch, that would have required an act of Congress. It would have required Senate confirmation,” Min said. “And it would have required Elon Musk and his 25-year-old buddies to have complied with a lot of different laws out there which they are not complying with right now. Every day they’re out there, they’re violating the law.”
A source told The Epoch Times that federal law enforcement was dispatched to protect DOGE workers’ family members after their names were leaked.
Lawmakers have come out in support of the employees against the threats. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who oversees the House DOGE Caucus’s defense and veterans’ affairs portfolio, told The Epoch Times that people who issue death threats “need to go to prison, or it’s not going to stop.”
