Musk floats slashing IRS budget, regulatory agency in X posts

Billionaire Elon Musk, who will play a role in the new Trump Administration as a co-head of the newly planned, informal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) commission, has often floated proposals on his social media platform, X. 

On Wednesday, the entrepreneur asked his millions of followers if Congress should grant a recent $20 billion dollar funding request from the Internal Revenue Service by Biden Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who said the extra funds were vital for running the tax collection agency.

“The IRS just said it wants $20B more money,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

“Do you think its budget should be: Increased, Same, Decreased, Deleted,” he asked, in an attached poll. 

More than 60% of the users who voted in his poll called for the IRS’s budget to be “deleted.” 

This is just the latest instance of Musk asking for public feedback on his policy proposals on X, which he acquired in 2022. 

Adeyemo’s plea for extra funding comes after Republican lawmakers were able to include a $20 billion cut to the agency’s budget in a federal funding stopgap bill in September, which is keeping the government funded until Dec. 20. 

Musk also called for slashing government regulations by eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is responsible for protecting consumers in the financial sector. 

“Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” Musk posted to X. 

The agency was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to regulate the sector.