“We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible,” Musk said, pointing to the DOGE account on X, which frequently posts claims about purported fraud and terminated contracts the group has pursued without providing any additional evidence or documentation, or links to government data that was already publicly available before Trump took office.
Watchdogs have also argued that the billionaire’s unprecedented influence over federal spending raises conflict of interest concerns, since Musk’s companies do billions of dollars of business with the federal government and are regulated by the same federal agencies he’s in the process of overhauling.
Critics have argued the effort has attempted mass firings and cancellation of federal spending, with little public information available or congressional oversight about the extent of the changes or who is serving in the DOGE effort.
Democratic lawmakers have accused Department of Government of Efficiency of providing little transparency about efforts to drastically reduce size and spending of federal government.
The previous day, Musk answered questions from the Washington press corps for the first time since he arrived in the White House and began overseeing cuts and mass firings at agencies nearly a month ago.
