Key takeaways from Trump’s 1st Cabinet meeting — with Elon Musk

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday and In the room, and at times taking center stage, was Elon Musk.

For little more than an hour, Trump sought to tout his administration’s work so far and fielded questions on everything from the status of Musk’s efforts to force federal firings to negotiations to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite not being a member of the Cabinet, Musk has outsized influence in the administration as he oversees the Department of Government Efficiency’s work to reduce the size and scope of the government.

“We put together a great Cabinet,” Trump said as he began the meeting. “And we’ve had tremendous success.”

Here are key takeaways from the gathering.

Elon Musk in the spotlight

Musk was the first to speak at the meeting after Trump’s introduction. Donning a “Tech Support” t-shirt and a black “Make America Great Again” cap, Musk stood in the corner of the room to talk about DOGE.

Musk defended the entity’s controversial actions, saying the overall goal is to cut the deficit and warned if cuts aren’t made the country will “become de facto bankrupt.”

“That’s the reason I’m here. And taking a lot of flack, and getting a lot of death threats, by the way,” he said.

His presence among Trump’s agency heads came amid confusion stemming from a Musk-directed ultimatum to federal workers to list their weekly accomplishments or possibly face termination. Senior White House officials were initially caught off guard, ABC News reported, when Musk first posted about the directive and it’s since created tension among Cabinet members as multiple agency heads told employees to hold off on replying.

When Musk was asked by a reporter if any Cabinet members were unhappy, Trump interrupted.

“Is anybody unhappy with Elon?” Trump said to the group, many of whom started laughing.”If you are, we’ll throw him out of here. Is anybody unhappy? They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this,” as members started applauding.

1 million workers ‘on the bubble’

Trump said federal employees who didn’t respond to Musk’s email are on a firing “bubble.”

“I’d like to add that those million people that haven’t responded though Elon, they are on the bubble. You know, I wouldn’t say that we’re thrilled about it,” Trump said. He went on to claim, without evidence, that maybe those employees “don’t exist.”

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Trump about his interest in doing another round of emails demanding federal workers’ accomplishments and what the requirements would be.

“I think Elon wants to, and I think it’s a good idea because, you know, those people, as I said before, they’re on the bubble,” he responded, emphasizing his desire to find out if workers exist,” Trump said.

Not ‘much’ in security guarantees for Ukraine

Trump signaled the United States will not be providing much in security guarantees to Ukraine — a key factor for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in any agreement to bring the conflict to a close.

“Well, I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond, very much,” Trump said. “We’re going to have Europe do that because it’s in you know, we’re talking about Europe is the next-door neighbor, but we’re going to make sure everything goes well.”

Trump later said the mineral resources deal between the U.S. and Ukraine will be “automatic security” because the U.S. will be investing in the nation, suggesting that would be a barrier to Russia.

“Nobody’s going to be messing around with people when we’re there,” Trump said. “And so we’ll be there in that way.”

Trump says Putin will have to make concessions

After weeks of public statements on what Ukraine will likely have to sacrifice in negotiations, including their goal of returning to pre-war borders, Trump indicated for the first time that Russia’s Vladimir Putin may have to make concessions.

“Yeah, he will. He’s going to have to,” Trump said of Putin.

Notably, he did not elaborate on what those would be.

When later asked what concessions Putin would have to make, Trump shifted toward Ukraine and said they could “forget” about NATO membership.

Medicaid and Social Security to be left ‘untouched’

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Trump about the budget bill that passed in the House Tuesday night — which includes a goal of at least $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory federal spending — and whether Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would be cut.

“I have said it so many times … This won’t be read my lips anymore. We’re not going to touch it,” Trump responded, echoing the statement George H.W. Bush famously made about “no new taxes” and then later had to reverse.

Trump claimed that there would be a reduction in fraud in those programs. Trump has echoed false claims stemming from Musk that dead Americans are receiving Social Security.

Experts told ABC News that is not true, and that Musk is misreading Social Security’s network of databases when he claims 200-year-olds are in the system.

Trump vows tariffs on the European Union

Trump stressed that he is still planning to push tariffs on foreign countries to improve the economy and claimed the European Union in particular left the U.S. with billions in debt and was formed to “screw the United States.”

“We have made a decision, will be announcing it very soon and it’ll be 25%, generally speaking, and that’ll be on cars and all other things,” he said.

Trump said the tariffs against Mexico and Canada are expected to go into effect next week on April 2, after a monthlong pause.

But then Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested another pause may be possible based on fentanyl prevention and progress on the border.

“If they can prove to the president they’ve done an excellent job,” Lutnick said. Trump quickly jumped in: “It’s going to be hard to satisfy.”

ABC News’ Ivan Pereira and Emily Chang contributed to this report.