U2 frontman Bono isn’t holding back when it comes to taking on two of the world’s most polarizing figures — former President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk.
In a fiery appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Bono condemned the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — a Trump-era initiative aimed at slashing federal spending — calling its actions “pure evil.” The Irish rock legend cited academic research warning that DOGE-driven cuts could have devastating consequences, particularly for global food and aid programs.
“There’s food rotting in boats, in warehouses — 50,000 tons of it,” Bono said. “The people who had the knowledge, the ones distributing that aid, were fired. That’s not America, is it?”
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A Musical Front of Resistance
Bono isn’t the only rock icon speaking out. Bruce Springsteen, a longtime critic of Trump, has used his current tour to denounce what he sees as cruelty at the highest levels of American power. In a recent onstage speech, “The Boss” declared:
“In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death... they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.”
Musk Fires Back
Elon Musk, who previously led DOGE as a Special Government Employee under Trump, quickly responded to Bono’s comments via X (formerly Twitter). Dismissing the accusations, Musk called the singer a “liar” and an “idiot,” firmly denying any link between the DOGE cuts and deaths abroad.
“Zero people have died because of the cuts to USAID,” Musk wrote.
“South Park lampooned Bono as the biggest s*** in the world. They were right.”
Musk had earlier announced his departure from the DOGE program, thanking Trump in a post on X:
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”
Despite his role, Musk has recently expressed disappointment with Trump’s proposed “Big, Beautiful Bill” — a sweeping federal budget that cuts funding for health and energy initiatives while boosting military spending and offering large tax breaks.
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“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,” Musk told CBS Sunday Morning. “It increases the budget deficit and undermines the work the DOGE team is doing.”
“A Whipping Boy for Everything”
In a follow-up interview with The Washington Post, Musk defended the embattled program:
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything... Something bad happens anywhere, and we get blamed, even if we had nothing to do with it.”
He also acknowledged that reforming government systems was more difficult than he anticipated.
“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized... It’s an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
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