Elon Musk has addressed concerns of potential conflicts of interest relating to the cost cutting campaign of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The department has been engaged in extensive efforts to reduce what it believes is wasteful spending at the federal level since Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President last month. This has led to accusations that there is a conflict of interest at play.
Concerns were aired even more when DOGE turned its attention to financial services regulators, namely the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also seems to be falling under its crosshairs.
A 0.0% chance of wrongdoing, says Musk
This is due to Musk’s extensive business interests, which tended to financial services and payments, with DOGE’s campaign coinciding with the integration of Visa payments into his X social media platform.
“The possibility of me getting away with something is 0%, 0.0%,” Musk asserted in an interview with FOX News yesterday, where he appeared alongside Donald Trump, who had some high praise for his new government colleague.
“I’m scrutinised to a ridiculous degree. The other thing is that, you know what’s better than saying trust me, is full transparency,” Musk continued.
“What we’re doing with DOGE, if you go to DOGE.GOV, you can see every action that is being taken. We are going to make some mistakes, we’re not going to be perfect – nobody bats 1,000, but we’re going to fix the mistakes very quickly. That’s what matters, not that you make mistakes.”
DOGE’s activities have been, as expected, extremely polarising. On the one hand, many American politicians and the public see the department as a necessary measure to cut government overspending and reduce the US deficit.
On the other, sceptics see it as cutting away at necessary government programmes, and some have gone even further and, as mentioned above, accused Musk of a conflict of interest as he targets departments which have been involved in investigations against his companies.
At the start of February, protesters gathered outside the US Treasury in Washington DC holding signs reeling ‘Stop Elon’s Takeover’ and ‘hands off our money’, rallying against the Treasury granting DOGE restricted access to its payments systems. This access was subsequently revoked by a judge, however.
Shortly after, DOGE turned its attention to the CFPB, with staff at the regulator told by its then-Acting Director, Russell Vought, to stop all activity. This led to a lawsuit filed against Vought by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which argues that only Congress has the power to order or stop federal agency missions.
In his interview with FOX News’ Sean Hannity, Musk asserted his view that many of the people who are rallying against DOGE’s cost cutting efforts are those who illicitly benefit from federal overspending.
“I think we’re seeing an antibody reaction from those who are receiving the wasteful and fraudulent money,” he remarked.
“I’ll tell you a lesson I learned at Paypal, you know who campaigned the quickest, the loudest and with the most righteous indignation? The fraudsters – the first, loudest and with the most righteous indignation, that’s how we knew they were the fraudsters.”
