UPDATE 1-Trump says Elon Musk has an advisory role; cabinet secretaries are in charge

The president posted about Thursday's cabinet meeting on social media platform Truth Social, saying he and Musk had a positive meeting with most of the cabinet secretaries. "It's very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it's also important to keep the best and most productive people," Trump wrote in the post.

U.S. President Donald Trump told his cabinet on Thursday that they have the final say on personnel and policy at their agencies, not billionaire Elon Musk and his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, who will play an advisory role, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The president convened his cabinet to discuss DOGE amid complaints from different agency heads and Republican members of Congress over how the cost-cutting program is being run. Trump's statement to cabinet secretaries appeared to be an effort to restrict Musk's authority following widespread criticism of the Tesla CEO's blunt-force approach to cutting the federal workforce and government spending.

Reuters reported last week that top White House aides are struggling

to contain disputes at the White House and across the administration following Musk's ultimatum to federal workers to list their accomplishments or lose their jobs. The president posted about Thursday's cabinet meeting on social media platform Truth Social, saying he and Musk had a positive meeting with most of the cabinet secretaries.

"It's very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it's also important to keep the best and most productive people," Trump wrote in the post. "As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the 'scalpel' rather than the 'hatchet.'"

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