Elon Musk joined Donald Trump in the Oval Office as the US president signed an executive order allowing the tech billionaire to make large-scale reductions in the federal workforce.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group, Mr Musk says he wants to add “common sense controls” to government and ensure taxpayer money is spent wisely.

The executive order requires government agencies to work with DOGE, in some cases so they can be “eliminated or combined because their functions aren’t required by law”.

In addition, the agencies have been told to “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service”, with exceptions for immigration, law enforcement and public safety.

Answering reporters’ questions in the Oval Office, Mr Musk was asked to respond to accusations he is orchestrating a “hostile takeover” of government in a non-transparent way.

The Tesla CEO and owner of X said “the public voted for major government reform… and they’re going to get what they voted for. And that’s what democracy is all about”.

“We have this unelected, fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has in a lot of ways, currently more power than any elected representative,” he added, while stood alongside his son X Æ A-12.

Mr Musk also spoke about what he described as a lack of Treasury controls. “Your tax dollars need to be spent wisely on things that matter to the people… it’s just common sense. It’s not draconian or radical”.

When challenged about what checks and balances are in place to ensure accountability for Mr Musk, who is unelected, he replied: “We are trying to be as transparent as possible… I don’t know of a case where an organisation has been more transparent”.

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Another reporter raised the possibility of conflicts of interest, pointing out Mr Musk has received billions of dollars in federal contracts.

“All of our actions are fully public,” he says, adding that he fully expects to be “scrutinised nonstop” – comparing it to “a daily proctologist exam” – but also admitting “we will make mistakes, but we’ll also fix the mistakes very quickly”.

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” he said. “So nobody can bat 1,000.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Musk posted an attack aimed at judges who have issued rulings that paused Mr Trump’s executive actions.

“Democracy in America is being destroyed by judicial coup,” Mr Musk wrote on X.

The president voiced a similar complaint in the Oval Office alongside Mr Musk.

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“We want to weed out the corruption. And it seems hard to believe that a judge could say, we don’t want you to do that,” he said.

“So maybe we have to look at the judges, because that’s very serious. I think it’s a very serious violation.”

Mr Trump also held discussions with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House.

The president repeated his pledge to “take Gaza” and move its residents to Jordan and Egypt, something the king has rejected.

Donald Trump has doubled down on US plans to take over Gaza in a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House.

The meeting came the day after the president said he would withhold aid to Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries if they refused to take in people forcibly displaced from Gaza.

King Abdullah’s “steadfast position” – as he laid out on X after the news conference – was “against the displacement of Palestinians.”

He said Jordan, which is already home to millions of Palestinians, will take in 2,000 children who have cancer or are otherwise unwell.

But on taking in more Gazans, he stressed a solution that was “good for everybody” – including Americans, the “people in the region” and Jordanians – was his priority.

However, the King sat quietly as Mr Trump reiterated his plans to displace two million Palestinians, which he said was a “very small number of people”.

Mr Trump also said he believes there will be “parcels of land” in Jordan, Egypt and “someplace else” where Palestinians will live “happily and very safely”.

“They only want to be in the Gaza Strip because they don’t know anything else, they’ve never had an alternative,” Mr Trump said.

“They are being killed there at levels that nobody has ever seen – no place in the world is as dangerous as the Gaza Strip.”

He claims – contrary to what Gazans have said – that “not one person” wants to stay in Gaza.

Asked to respond to the widespread view among experts in international law that his plan amounts to ethnic cleansing, Mr Trump said: “We are moving them to a beautiful location.”

However, Trump appeared to ease off his previous threat to withdraw aid to countries that refused to take in people from Gaza.

“Well, I don’t want to say that… we don’t have to threaten that, I do believe we’re above that,” he said.

In the same news conference, Mr Trump said the US won’t buy Gaza, it will simply “have it”.

“We don’t have to buy, there’s nothing to buy,” he said.

“It’s a war-torn area, we’re going to hold it, we’re going to take it… Gaza the way it is, civilisation has been wiped out in Gaza. It’s going to be a great economic development.”

He declined to answer how that would work – and how he can avoid spending US taxes running it.

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“We’re going to run it very properly and eventually we’ll have economic development at a very large scale”, he said, promising “peace in the Middle East”.

“With the United States in control of that piece of land… you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time.

“The Palestinians, the people who live now in Gaza, will be living beautifully in another location.

“They are going to be living safely – they’re not going to be killed, murdered and having to leave every 10 years.”

Trump added that he is 99% sure he will work out a deal with Egypt.

An American teacher sentenced to 14 years in a Russian jail has been released and is flying home to be reunited with his family.

Marc Fogel, 63, was pictured on a flight to the US on Tuesday – more than three years after he was arrested in Moscow for drug smuggling.

He was detained after travelling with what his family said was medically prescribed cannabis. In December, the US government designated him as wrongfully detained.

Mr Fogel left Russia with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in what officials said could help bring about talks to end the Ukraine war.

US national security adviser Mike Waltz said: “President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisers negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians”.

“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” he added.

Moscow has so far not commented and it is unclear what concessions the US might have made.

“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” the family said in a statement.

They said their time apart had been “the darkest and most painful period of our lives”.

Mr Waltz said the deal was “a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine”.

Donald Trump said last month his administration was involved in “very serious” talks with Russia about the future of the conflict.

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Mr Fogel’s release comes six months after he was excluded from the biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War.

That historic deal won the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, among others.

Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov was among those released from Western prisons in exchange.

However, US-Russian national Ksenia Khavana remains locked up after getting a 12-year treason sentence in August related to a $52 donation to a charity benefiting Ukraine.