Golden Finance reported that on March 2 local time, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said that the Trump administration is considering excluding government spending from gross domestic product (GDP) calculations. This move could change the core indicators of measuring the health of the U.S. economy and weaken outside judgments about the impact of government spending cuts. Recently, Musk and his department of government efficiency (DOGE) have carried out a series of "dramatic" slashes on the U.S. government departments, which are worrying that the move will lead to an economic downturn. Lutnik's statement was considered a response to this concern. He declared: "Successive governments have interfered in GDP and they counted government spending as part of GDP. So I want to separate the two and make it more transparent."