Elon Musk delivered a lengthy defense of his time with the Department of Government Efficiency after Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov accused him of cutting agencies that were investigating his companies. Tarlov also questioned Musk about the government contracts and subsidies connected to his businesses. Musk pushed back by pointing to DOGE’s public disclosures and the intense scrutiny surrounding his brief role with the government.
The exchange aired during the April 1st, 2025, edition of Fox News Channel’s “The Five,” where Tarlov regularly serves as the program’s liberal voice. Musk joined the show as DOGE faced persistent attacks over its campaign to cut federal spending, contracts, and personnel. Critics had also raised potential conflicts involving Musk’s government work and his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.
Tarlov opened with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the wave of vandalism and arson attacks targeting Tesla vehicles and facilities at the time. “Liberal Tesla lover here. My sister has two in her family, so have not thrown any Molotov cocktails recently,” she said. After the lighthearted joke, she immediately turned the conversation toward DOGE and suggested Musk’s cost-cutting work could be serving his private business interests.
“You’ve been making cuts to a lot of the agencies that have open investigations and regulatory battles with your companies,” Tarlov said in the exchange posted by Townhall. “At the same time, you continue to get billions in government contracts. Tesla gets billions in subsidies. How do you explain that to the American people?”
Musk responded that DOGE’s activities were publicly disclosed and could be challenged by anyone who objected to a particular action. “Well, everything that DOGE does is an open book,” he said. “So we’re, I think, the most transparent organization in government ever. Every single DOGE action is listed on the DOGE.gov website. It’s also listed on the X handle.”
The billionaire noted that DOGE’s public disclosures allowed critics to identify and raise concerns about individual decisions rather than referring to broad accusations. “So if anyone has a concern about any one of those actions, they can bring that up. They can raise that,” Musk said. His appearance came days after he told Fox News that DOGE believed it could identify $1 trillion in federal spending reductions, according to a March 28th Reuters report.
Watch Musk respond to Tarlov’s accusations here:
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Musk then acknowledged that DOGE could make mistakes while carrying out its massive review of federal government spending. “Nobody bats a thousand. We will at times make a mistake, and we will act very quickly to correct it,” he said. Musk argued that the level of attention directed at him made it extraordinarily difficult to conceal any improper conduct, telling Tarlov, “I am under such an extreme spotlight, so much scrutiny, that it is literally impossible for me to get away with anything nefarious, and obviously nor do I wish to.”
He described DOGE’s approach as one of “radical transparency” and said the organization was willing to acknowledge errors that other government actors might refuse to own up to. “But we want to emphasize we fix them quickly, and we’re trying to do the right thing for the American taxpayer, for the American people,” Musk said. He finished his answer by leaving the final verdict to the results of DOGE’s work: “And I think history will be the judge that what we’ve done here and what we’re doing is a very good thing for the strength and future of America.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.