A fiery confrontation erupted between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk during a Cabinet meeting on Friday (IST), as tensions flared over the extent of staff reductions under the Trump administration.

The dispute unfolded in front of President Donald Trump, who firmly reiterated that Cabinet heads—not Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—would have the final say on staffing and policy decisions within their agencies.

According to The New York Times, Musk, tasked by Trump with cutting government spending and reducing the federal workforce, accused Rubio of failing to implement sufficient layoffs. “You haven’t fired anyone,” Musk reportedly told Rubio, sarcastically noting that the only termination Rubio had made was within Musk’s own department.

Rubio, who had been frustrated with Musk for weeks—especially after Musk’s team dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which fell under Rubio’s oversight—finally voiced his grievances. Pushing back, Rubio accused Musk of being misleading, pointing out that 1,500 State Department employees had accepted early retirement buyouts. “Didn’t they count as layoffs?” Rubio asked, sarcastically suggesting that Musk would prefer he rehire those employees just to fire them again.

When questioned about the incident, Trump downplayed reports of the dispute. “No clash, I was there—you’re just a troublemaker,” he told a reporter in the Oval Office. He insisted that both Rubio and Musk were doing “a fantastic job” and maintained that they “get along great.”

The meeting was called following mounting complaints from agency heads about the aggressive tactics of Musk’s operation. Additionally, the White House Office of Legislative Affairs has been inundated with calls from Republican lawmakers nationwide, many of whom have faced backlash from constituents over the staffing changes.