EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin was scheduled to meet with Elon Musk’s DOGE team in the White House in late March as Zeldin and the Trump administration were crafting plans for deep cuts to EPA.
Zeldin’s internal calendar includes a March 27 entry titled “Meeting w/ Elon Musk West Wing 221,” from 6:30 until 7:30 p.m. That calendar, released under the Freedom of Information Act, offers more details about the EPA administrator’s meeting than what was included on his publicly available schedule, which labels a 6:30 p.m. meeting a “White House meeting.”
Musk didn’t attend, EPA’s press office said Wednesday. “Elon Musk was not present at the meeting. The meeting with DOGE covered technology needs and gaps at EPA.”
The EPA administrator’s detailed internal calendars for March offer a glimpse into the agency’s inner workings as Zeldin and his team have worked to overhaul Biden-era environmental policies, downsize the agency and make their case to the public with a blitz of media appearances.
Zeldin has been one of the Trump administration’s most vocal advocates of the Musk-led DOGE operation attempting to slash federal spending and the size of the government workforce. Zeldin’s public calendar in February showed another meeting with DOGE.
The DOGE team praised Zeldin on social media in March for his team’s cancellations of grants and contracts, including spending on environmental justice projects.
Zeldin’s calendar also shows which lawmakers, industry groups and executive branch officials have scored meetings with the EPA administrator. And the schedule shows which policy issues are occupying the administrator’s time.
The EPA boss was scheduled to meet in the Oval Office on March 14, the calendar shows. Other listed participants were “POTUS” and the president’s Cabinet.
Zeldin’s calendar shows a March 4 meeting on the “Social Cost of GHGs” ahead of the agency’s March 12 announcement that EPA would revisit the Biden administration’s “social cost of carbon,” a metric used to assess the cost of climate change.
The administrator’s schedule shows regular media appearances, including morning, evening and weekend entries from a mobile “van at residence.”
“Mobile Vans are routinely sent by cable and network news organizations when in-person or satellite interviews cannot be accommodated. This is not an EPA asset nor does EPA have that capacity/ability,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said Wednesday in an email.
President Donald Trump is known to value television appearances by his aides and has used the term “central casting” as a form of praise.
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