The first meeting of the new government oversight efficiency subcommittee — nicknamed the “DOGE Subcommittee” — devolved on Wednesday into petty nonsense at a rate impressive even for Congress, as Democrats and Republicans sparred over the role of Elon Musk in the executive branch, traded crass jokes and accusations of unseriousness, and pleas were made to be nice to the world’s richest man.

The subcommittee for Delivering on Government Efficiency were supposed to focus on “improper payments” by the federal government to organizations and individuals that were not explicitly approved by Congress. The panel was created by Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, who then tapped Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene as its leader. 

However, the DOGE chief — not government spending itself — emerged as the most important issue of the day, with Democrats decrying “President Elon” and Republicans coming to his defense. 

“While we’re sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government,” the top Democrat on the panel, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, said in her opening statement. She highlighted the fact that Mr. Musk did an impromptu press conference with reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, with President Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk. 

Congressman Robert Garcia — a California Democrat who has become a favorite of liberals on social media and cable television — similarly used his time to go after Mr. Musk for his role in trying to shutter whole federal agencies and halt payment processes. He took a shot at the subcommittee chairwoman herself, who during the last Congress displayed a poster board at a committee hearing that included a barely blurred photograph of a naked Hunter Biden. 

“We should not stand by as the richest man on the planet gives himself and his companies huge tax cuts while the American people get absolutely nothing,” Mr. Garcia said. “In the last Congress, chairwoman Greene literally showed a dick pic in our oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I’d bring one as well,” the congressman declared, before having one of his staff members pull up his own poster board with a photo of Mr. Musk smiling in a tuxedo. 

“This of course, we know, is President Elon Musk,” Mr. Garcia said. Sitting next to Mr. Garcia was a fellow Democrat, Congressman Greg Casar, who could be seen fighting back laughter when that line was delivered. 

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, another Democrat who has famously sparred with Ms. Greene in the past, took aim not only at Mr. Musk and his decision to address the press from the Oval Office, but at Ms. Greene herself. 

“I do wanna be clear: Before the Trump administration came in, this committee did exist in the form of the Oversight Committee, and our task is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. In that vein, we had a number of hearings, at least last term … and we dealt with improper payments, and interestingly enough, our chairwoman — who is so passionate about this today — she missed every single one of those improper payment hearings,” Ms. Crockett said. “Just to be clear, I was there, so I don’t want anyone to believe that Democrats just come to work and don’t plan to do work.”

Democrats’ tongue-in-cheek criticisms of Mr. Musk and his plans for the executive branch seemed to evoke an emotional reaction from some of their GOP counterparts. One member of the House Freedom Caucus who is serving on the subcommittee, Congressman Eric Burlison, offered effusive praise of the world’s richest man, demanding that his Democratic colleagues stop attacking him. 

“Elon Musk, who’s making no money doing this, is trying to save this country! Why? Because he is invested in the United States of America more than anybody! So, I think we should embrace him. In fact, not a single company, governor — of any state — would ever turn down Elon Musk and his team of DOGE from coming in and providing free services to right the course financially,” Mr. Burlison said, arguing that it is “ridiculous” to raise concerns about Mr. Musk’s role. 

The social media reactions to the hearing weren’t much better. Many prominent pro-DOGE accounts on X were quick to mock the fact that the Democrats’ witness for the hearing, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette who is the director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, was wearing sunglasses indoors during his testimony. Those same accounts made fun of Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette because they found it ironic that, while wearing sunglasses, he said he could not “see” the fraud Mr. Musk was trying to highlight. 

Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette was wearing the sunglasses because he is blind.