Doge Team Under Musk’s Lead Claims Transparency
Elon Musk defended his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team initiative before the public as he stood alongside former U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office despite widespread criticism of Doge’s secretive operation and its broad federal agency cost-cutting measures. Musk emphasized that Doge is working hard to achieve total transparency even though multiple government agencies have shown concerns about the initiative’s secret operations. Musk claimed that government officials had used bribery to build their wealth during their time in office although he provided no proof to support these claims. He argued that Doge maintained openness because his social media platform X published detailed information about the initiative. “We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible,” Musk said. The behavior of his employees demonstrates the opposite of what his claims suggest because many Doge staffers hid their identities and avoided revealing their full names when they worked at government offices. The Doge team expanded to approximately 40 members but operated without revealing their identities. The status of special government employee granted to Musk allows him to avoid presenting his financial reports which creates potential conflicts of interest. Several of Musk’s government companies face ongoing investigations and have active contracts which makes Doge’s operation seem suspicious to critics. The current backlash does not seem to affect Musk who dismissed possible conflicts of interest when he said “I’m not the one preparing those contracts; that’s someone at SpaceX.” Musk acknowledged that errors might happen but vowed to address them as soon as possible like how he managed to optimize costs for his personal businesses.
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