Rolling Stone reports:

They may not agree on much, but when it comes to Pentagon spending, Sen. Bernie Sanders and billionaire Elon Musk are aligned.

Sanders, who usually makes enemies of billionaires like Musk, posted on X Sunday, “Elon Musk is right. The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It’s lost track of billions. Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change.”

Musk has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Sanders isn’t the only lawmaker on the left who is open to working with DOGE to reduce defense spending. Democratic Rep. Mo Khanna called out “waste, fraud, and abuse” by the Department of Defense, noting its failed audits.

“When it comes to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse and opening the 5 primes to more competition, there are Democrats on [the House Armed Services Committee] who will work with @elonmusk and @DOGE,” Khanna wrote in a post on X, the platform Musk owns.

“Cool!” Musk responded to Khanna on X.

Congress has mandated that the Defense Department must pass an audit by fiscal year 2028. Last month, the department released its seventh failed audit — meaning once again it could not account for all of its spending — yet the Pentagon claimed it is continuing to make progress toward a clean audit by the congressional deadline. [Continue reading…]