Elon Musk skirted a question from Fox News host Jessica Tarlov about his conflicts of interest as a White House adviser whose influence in the Trump administration affects his businesses.
Tarlov, The Five’s resident liberal, alluded to SpaceX’s billions of dollars in government contracts, and how some personnel decisions for federal workers have raised eyebrows given their agencies’ role in investigating or regulating his companies.
Forced resignations and firings at the behest of the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have occurred in the National Labor Relations Boards, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Donald Trump, for instance, fired the Transportation Department’s inspector general in January, weeks after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began probing collisions linked to a mobile app allowing Tesla drivers remote control.
Also, FAA leader Michael Whitaker stepped down on Inauguration Day after Musk had demanded his resignation. Whitaker had proposed fining SpaceX $600,000 over allegedly not meeting safety regulations.
Tarlov asked Musk about DOGE:
“You’ve been making cuts to a lot of the agencies that have open investigations and regulatory battles with your companies. 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 replied by mentioning that DOGE is “an open book,” and that “if anyone has a concern about any one of those actions, they can bring that up”—which is what Tarlov just did.
But Musk didn’t directly address her concerns.
“I do want to say sometimes we make a mistake,“ he reiterated.
One such mistake was cancelling Ebola prevention research through the U.S. Agency for International Development. Experts have doubted Musk’s claim that funding was restored, since USAID has been effectively shuttered.
“Nobody bats 1000,” Musk said. “At times we’ll make a mistake. We’ll act very quickly to correct it.”
Musk then argued that since he’s such a highly scrutinized figure, “it’s impossible for me to get away with anything nefarious—and obviously, nor do I wish to.”
“So this is a case where we have radical transparency,” he went on.
“We’re actually willing to admit that we do make mistakes. People are often not willing to admit they make mistakes. We are. We fix them quickly and try to do the right thing for the American people and the American taxpayer,” he said. “History will be a judge that what we’ve done here and what we’re doing is a very good thing for the strength and future of America.”
Yet there have been plenty of voters at Republican lawmakers’ town halls who don’t see it that way.
