Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary found himself at the receiving end of a savaging from former New Jersey congressman Tom Malinowski, who sank his teeth into the TV businessman for making unfounded claims about Elon Musk’s federal government purge.
The pair were speaking about the subject on Laura Coates Live on CNN Monday after DOGE chief Musk demanded federal workers report on their achievements over a working week, to see if they were pulling their weight. “We’ve never audited government for 100 years,” O’Leary declared.
Even Coates looked confused by this statement, saying “I don’t think that’s right,” before Malinowski wiped the floor with the Canadian entrepreneur, who was calling for “more cuts.”
“It helps to know some things if we’re going to have this debate,” the former Democratic congressman said coldly, before dropping a series of knowledge bombs. “Every agency of the federal government is audited by independent inspectors general. USAID was audited over 60 times last year, and one of the first things the Trump administration did was to fire all of the inspectors general.”
Just days into Trump 2.0, the president fired at least 17 inspectors general across various federal departments and agencies.
Malinowski continued his shut-down, with O’Leary looking sideswiped: “They fired the auditors... Kevin, what you’re talking about [‘deep cuts’] might work for a company that makes widgets, because we can do without the company that makes widgets for a few months while you get in there [and] restructure it. You can’t do that to the FAA unless people aren’t going to fly in planes for the next four or five months. You can’t do that to the Department of Defense unless you don’t want to defend this country for the next four or five months.“
He added: “It’s ridiculous that we’re even having this argument. And I’m someone who believes there’s waste in government and there’s ways to get at it. But not by firing everybody first, shutting things down, while you investigate. Do the investigation work with Congress, work with these employees, do it right. It’s been done before.”
Malinowski also took a swipe at O’Leary over his TV work. “This may work on Shark Tank, but it’s not a company that you take over and dismantle and sell for parts because you want to do it in a different way. You have to do things in accordance with the Constitution,” he said. O’Leary has hosted the ABC business reality show since 2009.
Coates brought a laughing O’Leary back in, and he responded: “The federal government is fat!”
Musk caused uproar after firing off an email to federal employees on Saturday titled “What did you do last week?” It demanded bullet points on what they accomplished over the working week. Musk later said on X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” Some agencies then urged their workers to ignore Musk’s ultimatum.
