President Trump said Thursday his Cabinet secretaries and Elon Musk had a “very positive” meeting Thursday about cutting the costs of government, and will hold such sessions every two weeks.

“It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important [to] keep the best and most productive people,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done.”

He said the relationships between the Cabinet secretaries and Mr. Musk is “extraordinary.”

Mr. Trump has been unwavering in his message of cutting costs and has given Mr. Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, wide latitude to look into different federal agencies’ spending.

“DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and staffing,” Mr. Trump wrote.

“As the Secretaries learn about and understand the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain and who will go.”

Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that he doesn’t “want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.”

“I want the Cabinet members to keep the good people — and the people that aren’t doing a good job, that are unreliable, don’t show up to work, etc., those people can be cut,” Mr. Trump said.

“We’re going to be watching them, and Elon and the group are going to be watching them and if they can cut, it’s better,” he said. “And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”

DOGE is consistently announcing cuts to personnel, programs and funds. But it has made some mistakes.

Mr. Musk last week said the department accidentally canceled the United States Agency for International Development’s efforts to stop the spread of Ebola.

“We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly,” Mr. Musk said at the president’s first meeting with Cabinet officials last week. “So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately. And there was no interruption.”

The department also had to rescind the firings of federal employees who worked at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“We say the ’scalpel’ rather than the ’hatchet,’” Mr. Trump wrote in his post. “The combination of them, Elon, DOGE, and other great people will be able to do things at a historic level.”

The president has signed several executive orders giving DOGE the power it needs to cut costs and work with federal agencies.

He has consistently defended Mr. Musk and DOGE, despite Democrats railing against Mr. Musk’s cuts. Democrats have ridiculed his role, saying Mr. Musk is the president and Mr. Trump has given his power over to him.

Still, Mr. Musk has continuously been in the room where it happens — Cabinet meetings, Mr. Trump’s address to Congress, meetings with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill and meeting with foreign leaders who come to visit the president.

He admitted that DOGE has had some hiccups in his closed-door meeting with the House GOP Wednesday night. He attended the Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch earlier in the day where he asked lawmakers to turn the cuts made by DOGE into law.

“It is now time for the White House to put together a rescissions package so that Congress can turn DOGE’s work product into law and save money for the American people,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, wrote in an X post Wednesday.