RACHEL SCOTT: Musk, the world’s richest man, with billions of dollars in federal contracts, has been given enormous power. His Department of Government Efficiency already accessing at least 15 agencies.
Mr. Musk, The White House says that you will identify and excuse yourself from any conflicts of interest that you may have. Does that mean that you are in effect policing yourself? What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure there's accountability and transparency?
ELON MUSK: Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions-- we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and to the DOGE website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been -- I don't know of a case where an organization's been more transparent than the DOGE organization. So -- the kind of things we're doing are, I think, are very simple and basic. These are not individual judgment decisions. These are about simply having simple checks and balances in the system itself to ensure taxpayer money is spent well. So it’s got nothing to do with, say, a contract with some company of mine, At all.
SCOTT: But if there is a conflict of interest, when it comes to you yourself, for instance, you've received billions of dollars in federal contracts when it comes to the Pentagon, for instance, which I know the president has directed you to look into.
MUSK: Yeah.
SCOTT: Are you policing yourself in that? Is there any sort of accountability, check and balance in place that would provide any transparency for the American people?