Explosive details about a Cabinet meeting confrontation between Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were revealed by The New York Times on Friday.

The exchange, in which Musk and Rubio apparently went back and forth heatedly over cuts to the State Department, puts a spotlight on larger questions about President Trump’s more politically questionable moves since returning to the White House.

For a start, the decision to give Musk such a high-profile and consequential role has plainly rubbed even some fellow Trump Cabinet members the wrong way. The Times reported on other tensions, albeit of a less combustible nature, between Musk and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, as well as with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.

Beyond any personal tensions, however, there is also the question of the sweeping cuts to the government that Musk and his quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have pushed.

While Trump has seemed mostly enthusiastic about the effort, the scale of the layoffs and the harsh way in which they have been enacted has caused some pause.

Democrats find Musk an inviting target — the richest person in the world slashing departments upon which millions of Americans depend — even as they acknowledge there is some level of waste and inefficiency in government spending.

The DOGE efforts to enact radical change have been matched by dramatic actions in other quarters in the early weeks of the Trump administration.

That’s especially true of tariffs, where Trump has been volatile........

© The Hill