Elon Musk is continuing to defend the work of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, recently claiming in an interview with Fox News that his initiative is “the most transparent organization in government ever.”
The billionaire SpaceX founder was slammed online after he made the stunning claim during a Tuesday appearance on “The Five” when host Jessica Tarlov pressed him about any conflicts of interest he may have in his role with DOGE and as a close adviser to President Donald Trump. Musk’s companies have received billions of dollars in federal government contracts over the years.
Both Trump and Musk have been strongly criticized by voters and elected officials for a lack of transparency in DOGE’s devastating methods for ostensibly reducing “waste, fraud and abuse” in government despite Musk — who was not elected to office by American voters — repeatedly insisting that DOGE has been transparent with its conduct.
DOGE has proposed major cuts in government, causing mass layoffs and the dismantling of federal agencies since Trump took office in January. And Trump and Musk have left many feeling uncertain about their futures with mixed messaging on the administration’s crusade against benefit programs like Social Security, which Musk has described as a “Ponzi scheme.” He’s also spewed several unfounded claims of widespread fraud within the agency.
Among the many uncertainties that have surrounded DOGE’s operations are questions about staffers and their qualifications, their access to sensitive data and even Musk’s official title within the initiative, to name a few.
DOGE has faced several lawsuits, court orders and overall scrutiny surrounding the transparency of its activities and Musk’s chainsaw-wielding approach to making cuts. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that DOGE should “likely” be subject to public disclosure laws like the Freedom of Information Act after watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued DOGE, as well as the Office of Management and Budget, last month to disclose its records.
Erik C. Nisbet, Owen L. Coon endowed professor of policy analysis and communication in the School of Communication at Northwestern University, told HuffPost that while it’s not exactly “unique” for an administration — Democrat or Republican — to not like being completely transparent with government records or providing access to inside information, he believes that Musk himself “doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to transparency.”
As for DOGE, Nisbet, who is the director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy at Northwestern, said that the initiative has been “disruptive” by making “painful cuts” and that more transparency would give the initiative more “legitimacy.”
“When an organization, when a process is not transparent, people are less likely to feel [it’s] legitimate,” he said. “And when decisions are made and the process is not transparent, or the reasons are not transparent, then people are less willing to accept those decisions — especially if it goes against their own self-interest or favor.”
He added that he thinks DOGE’s actions have been “very, very harmful — almost extragovernmental.”
“The claims of transparency do not match up to reality,” he said.
Read on to hear more from Nisbet on the effects of DOGE’s actions and why democracies rely on transparency.
DOGE’s operations have been “disruptive” — and without consideration for short- and long-term consequences, Nisbet said.
Nisbet addressed DOGE’s purging of federal employees across agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Veteran Affairs, pointing out that some fired employees had even received positive performance reviews prior to losing their jobs.
“This has been ... literally a chainsaw to a lot of government agencies that do great work both domestically and internationally, without consideration to both the short-term and long-term consequences. It’s very disruptive,” he said.
“They’re basically a broke Humpty Dumpty,” he said about the destruction caused by DOGE, adding that he doesn’t know how things will be able to be
“put back together again.”
“Some of these will have long-term consequences that will extend well past either Trump or Musk,” he said.
Musk’s claims about transparency “are definitely overstated,” Nisbet said.
Nisbet said that growing concerns about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest within his work for DOGE are a “key thing.”
“I think there is opportunity for corruption when there isn’t transparency,” he said. Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, which operates the satellite-based internet company Starlink, could benefit from changes to federal grant programs aimed at expanding high-speed internet to remote areas of the country, Nisbet explained.
“Musk has such a large ... range of enterprises that intersect with the government. Not having accountability and transparency about how the relationship between his business interests and what DOGE is doing ... it undercuts confidence in our government institutions,” he continued.
He added: “Whether it’s real or imagined — it might not be so — but even just the imagination or the taint can undercut confidence in our government ... which is problematic.”
Nisbet said that there’s a perception that Musk had bought “access to our government” via the millions of dollars he’s spent on campaigns for Trump and other Republicans.
And while Musk often touts the transparency of DOGE’s website — which states dollar amounts the group claims it has saved taxpayers due to grant cancellations, workforce reductions and other methods — Nisbet pointed out that investigations into the DOGE’s findings have found discrepancies— and a lack of information to verify its findings.
He later said that DOGE could be more transparent by providing more documentation and by giving the public a clearer understanding of the reasoning behind its decision-making — like shutting down programs that have been doing “great work” for decades.
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Overall, it’s important to remember that transparency is one of the reasons democracy “flourishes so well,” Nisbet said, adding, “One of the key advantages of democracy over authoritarianism, or other forms of government, is the idea of accountability and transparency.”
