Tech billionaire Elon Musk and seven top members of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team addressed their critics in a joint Fox News interview Thursday night, assuring Americans that their work is being done through a careful approach.

Since taking office two months ago, President Donald Trump has employed Musk’s DOGE to identify ways to cut waste, fraud, and abuse within the executive branch in order to make the government less bloated and more efficient. While Republicans largely support the vision, Democrats have relentlessly opposed the cost-cutting initiative.

“I do agree we actually want to be careful in the cuts. We want to measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once. That is our approach,” Musk told Fox host Bret Baier. Critics “may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that.”

The Trump adviser acknowledged that DOGE can still make mistakes. But when it does make errors, Musk said, “we correct them quickly and move on.”

DOGE has targeted numerous agencies and programs, most notably the U.S. Agency for International Development and Social Security, prompting outcry among Democratic lawmakers and anti-Musk protesters who have been violently vandalizing Tesla property in recent weeks.

The de facto department faced backlash after accidentally canceling USAID’s Ebola prevention efforts last month. Musk owned up to the mistake and said the programs to prevent the spread of the viral disease were quickly restored.

While DOGE detractors complained in that circumstance, the billionaire thinks most people don’t criticize the specific actions his team take.

“When they attack DOGE, they never attack the specifics,” Musk said. “We are like, ‘Well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any.”

Other senior members of the DOGE team include Steve Davis, described by the New York Times as Musk’s “top lieutenant,” and Joe Gebbia, a billionaire co-founder of Airbnb. Like Musk, they defended the work they’re doing.

Aram Moghaddassi, a DOGE software engineer, revealed during the sit-down interview that 40 percent of phone calls to Social Security are made by fraudsters, stealing money away from legitimate recipients of the federal benefits program.

The DOGE head expressed confidence in meeting its goal to reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion, calling the goal “achievable.”

“At a high level, you should think of this as we want to reduce the spending — by eliminating waste — to reduce the spending by 15 percent, which seems really quite achievable,” Musk said.

“The government is not efficient, and there’s a lot of waste and fraud,” he added. “We feel confident that a 15 percent reduction can be done without affecting any of the critical government services.”

A recent NBC News poll showed 46 percent of Americans saying the creation of DOGE was a good idea, although support of DOGE itself and Musk dropped. Only 41 percent view the effort positively, while 39 percent view the tech mogul in a favorable light.