Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the secretary of state, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world.

马可·鲁比奥被激怒了。在白宫的内阁会议室里，这位国务卿坐在总统旁边，听着世界首富连珠炮般的攻击。

Seated diagonally opposite, across the elliptical mahogany table, Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff.

坐在椭圆形红木桌子斜对面的埃隆·马斯克直斥鲁比奥，说他没有裁员。

You have fired “nobody,” Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

你没有解雇“任何人”，马斯克告诉鲁比奥，然后轻蔑地补充说，也许他解雇的唯一一个人就是马斯克的政府效率部的员工。

Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting on Thursday in front of President Trump and around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest.

自从马斯克的团队实际上完全关闭了本应由鲁比奥控制的美国国际开发署以来，鲁比奥几周来一直私下里对马斯克极为不满。而在上周四这场不同寻常的内阁会议上，当着特朗普总统和其他大约20人——会议细节之前没有被报道过——鲁比奥发泄了心中的怨气。

Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department.

鲁比奥说，马斯克没有说实话。1500多名以买断方式提前退休的国务院官员算怎么回事？他们不算裁员吗？他讽刺地问，马斯克是否想让他重新雇用所有这些人，这样他就可以再次解雇他们。然后，他提出了重组国务院的详细计划。

数周来，国务卿鲁比奥私下里对马斯克极为不满。

Mr. Musk was unimpressed. He told Mr. Rubio he was “good on TV,” with the clear subtext being that he was not good for much else. Throughout all of this, the president sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.

马斯克不为所动。他对鲁比奥说，他“在电视上表现很好”，潜台词显然是，他在其他方面并不出色。在整个过程中，总统靠在椅子上，双臂交叉，好像在看一场网球比赛。

After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Mr. Trump finally intervened to defend Mr. Rubio as doing a “great job.” Mr. Rubio has a lot to deal with, the president said. He is very busy, he is always traveling and on TV, and he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together.

在争论持续了一段令人不适的时间后，特朗普终于出面为鲁比奥辩护，说他做得“很棒”。总统说，鲁比奥有很多事情要处理。他很忙，他总是在外奔走和上电视，他还有一个部门要管理。所以每个人都需要齐心协力。

The meeting was a potential turning point after the frenetic first weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term. It yielded the first significant indication that Mr. Trump was willing to put some limits on Mr. Musk, whose efforts have become the subject of several lawsuits and prompted concerns from Republican lawmakers, some of whom have complained directly to the president.

在特朗普第二任期狂热的头几周之后，这次会议是一个潜在的转折点。这是特朗普愿意对马斯克施加一些限制的首个重要迹象。如今，马斯克的所作所为已经成为几起诉讼的主题，并引发了共和党议员的担忧，其中一些人直接向总统投诉。

From now on, he said, the secretaries would be in charge; the Musk team would only advise.

总统说，从现在起，各位部长将负责，马斯克团队只提供建议。

It is unclear what the long-term impact of the meeting will be. Mr. Musk remains Mr. Trump’s biggest political financial supporter — just this week his super PAC aired $1 million worth of ads that said, “Thank you, President Trump” — and Mr. Musk’s control of the social media website X has made administration staff members and cabinet secretaries alike fearful that he will target them in public.

目前还不清楚这次会议的长期影响是什么。马斯克仍然是特朗普最大的政治资金支持者——就在本周，他的超级政治行动委员会播放了价值100万美元的广告表示“谢谢你，特朗普总统”。同时，马斯克对社交媒体网站X的控制让政府工作人员和内阁部长都担心他会在公开场合针对自己。

Just moments before the blowup with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Musk and the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, went back and forth about the state of the Federal Aviation Administration’s equipment for tracking airplanes and what kind of fix was needed. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, jumped in to support Mr. Musk.

就在与鲁比奥争吵之前不久，马斯克和交通部长肖恩·达菲还就联邦航空管理局用于跟踪飞机的设备的状况、需要进行什么样的整改展开了激烈讨论。商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克跳出来支持马斯克。

Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?

达菲说，马斯克团队的年轻员工正试图解雇空中交通管制员。我该怎么办？达菲说。我现在要处理多起飞机失事，而你的人却要我解雇空中交通管制员？

这次内阁会议是特朗普总统愿意对马斯克施加一些限制的第一个重要迹象。

Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his assertion was a “lie.” Mr. Duffy insisted it was not; he had heard it from them directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been fired, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names.

马斯克告诉达菲，他的说法是“谎言”。达菲坚称不是；这是他直接从人们口中听到的。马斯克问，都有谁被解雇了，他说：把他们的名字给我。告诉我他们的名字。

Mr. Duffy said there were not any names, because he had stopped them from being fired. At another point, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under diversity, equity and inclusion programs were working in control towers. Mr. Duffy pushed back and Mr. Musk did not add details, but said during the longer back and forth that Mr. Duffy had his phone number and should call him if he had any issues to raise.

达菲说，没有名字，因为他已经阻止了他们被解雇。马斯克还坚称，在塔台工作的是一些通过多元、公平和包容项目聘用的人。达菲反驳了他，马斯克也没有补充细节，但在这场更加漫长的争吵中，他表示，达菲有他的电话号码，如果有什么问题要提，可以打给他。

The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be “geniuses,” he said.

讨论的最后，特朗普告诉达菲，他必须从麻省理工学院招空管员。他说，这些空管员必须是“天才”。

The secretary of veterans affairs, Doug Collins, has been dealing with one of the most politically sensitive challenges of all the cabinet secretaries. Mr. Musk’s cuts will affect thousands of veterans — a powerful constituency and a core part of the Trump base. Mr. Collins made the point that they should not wield a blunt instrument and cleave off everyone from the V.A. They needed to be strategic about it. Mr. Trump agreed with Mr. Collins, saying they ought to retain the smart ones and get rid of the bad ones.

退伍军人事务部长道格·柯林斯一直在处理所有内阁部长中最敏感的政治挑战之一。马斯克的裁员将影响到数以万计的退伍军人——这是一个强大的选民团体，也是特朗普票仓的核心部分。柯林斯指出，他们不应该简单粗暴地把事务部的所有人砍掉，他们要有战略眼光。特朗普同意柯林斯的观点，声称他们应该保留聪明的人，淘汰不好的人。

In response to a request for comment from The New York Times, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement: “As President Trump said, this was a great and productive meeting amongst members of his team to discuss cost-cutting measures and staffing across the federal government. Everyone is working as one team to help President Trump deliver on his promise to make our government more efficient.”

在回应《纽约时报》的置评请求时，白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特在声明中表示：“正如特朗普总统所说，他的团队成员讨论了削减成本的措施和整个联邦政府的人员配置，这是一次重要而富有成效的会议。每个人都在作为团队，帮助特朗普总统兑现他的承诺，让我们的政府更有效率。”

Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the State Department, responded, “Secretary Rubio considered the meeting an open and productive discussion with a dynamic team that is united in achieving the same goal: making America great again.”

国务院发言人塔米·布鲁斯回应说，“鲁比奥国务卿认为，这次会议是与一个充满活力的团队进行了一次公开而富有成效的讨论，这个团队团结一心，有着同一个目标：让美国再次伟大。”

弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿罗纳德·里根国家机场附近的波托马克河，一台起重机正在清理1月坠毁的美国航空公司飞机残骸。

A Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman said, “As President Trump has said, it’s important to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy while keeping in place the best and most productive federal employees. V.A. is working with DOGE and the rest of the administration to do just that.”

退伍军人事务部发言人说：“正如特朗普总统所说，提高效率，减少官僚主义，同时留住最优秀、最高产的联邦雇员，这一点很重要。退伍军人事务部正与政府效率部和其他政府部门合作来做到这一点。”

In a post on X on Friday, Mr. Duffy praised Mr. Trump and the work Mr. Musk’s team is doing and said it was an effective cabinet meeting. He added that “the DEI Department at the FAA was eliminated on day 2” and that Mr. Trump’s “approach of a scalpel versus a hatchet and better coordination between Secretaries and DOGE is the right approach to revolutionizing the way our government is run.”

在上周五发表的文章中，达菲赞扬了特朗普和马斯克团队正在做的工作，并称这是一次有效的内阁会议。他还说，“联邦航空局的多元、公平和包容部门在第二天就被撤了”，特朗普的“要手术刀不要斧头的做法，以及部长和效率部之间更好的协调，是彻底改变我们政府运作方式的正确思路。”

Mr. Musk, who later claimed on X that the cabinet meeting was “very productive,” seemed far less enthused inside the room. He aggressively defended himself, reminding the cabinet secretaries that he had built multiple billion-dollar companies from the ground up and knew something about hiring good people.

马斯克后来在X上声称，内阁会议“非常有成效”，但他在会议室里似乎远没有那么热情。他为自己做了激烈的辩护，提醒内阁部长们，自己从零开始建立了多家价值数千亿美元的公司，他知道如何雇佣优秀人才。