During a heated meeting of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday, members voted against issuing a subpoena to Elon Musk.
President Donald Trump named Musk to head the advisory Department of Government Efficiency, which has been tasked with streamlining government and finding ways to reduce spending.
During the Oversight Committee's meeting titled "Rightsizing Government," ranking member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., railed against Musk and his job at DOGE. Connolly moved to subpoena Musk to appear before the committee.
After Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said the motion was "not debatable," Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., moved to table the motion, and Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., seconded the motion as members yelled at one another expressing differing views.
The chair then said the ayes for tabling the motion outnumbered the nays. A recorded vote was requested and held, with members voting 20-19 not to subpoena Musk.
"I might add," Comer told Democrats after the vote, "you all could have invited Mr. Musk to be your minority witness, but you all chose to have a college professor, which you normally choose to have as a witness."
Democrats invited William G. Resh, associate professor of Public Policy and Management at the University of Southern California's Sol Price School of Public Policy, to appear at the hearing.
Progressives and liberals have targeted Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as they try to fight Trump's initiatives. They claim the billionaire's motivation for leading DOGE is increasing his own wealth instead of helping Americans.
Trump, though, campaigned on cutting the government bureaucracy before winning the Nov. 5 election, in which he was victorious in all seven key battleground states.
Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, testified at the Oversight Committee meeting.
In announcing the meeting last week, Comer said the committee would consider the example of the Iowa state government, which was dramatically streamlined under legislation initiated by Reynolds.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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