Trump says Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head a new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’
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Trump made the announcement on social media, fulfilling a campaign promise to give Musk sweeping oversight of federal spending.
President-elect Donald Trump named tech billionaire Elon Musk and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy on Tuesday to head up a new Department of Government Efficiency, fulfilling a campaign pledge to give Musk sweeping oversight of government spending.
Trump said in a statement on to social media that the department will help “dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and slash excess regulations. The name of the agency, DOGE for short, is a reference to a meme and a cryptocurrency associated with Musk.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in the statement released by the transition team.
On X, he added: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. He has provided few details about what he’d like to cut, though he has attacked relatively small recipients of federal money, such as the Education Department and NPR.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to get rid of the Department of Education.
Musk has said the cuts would mean “temporary hardship” for some people.
Ramaswamy has called for mass layoffs at federal agencies, a tactic that could sidestep legal protections that otherwise insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.
He said on X this week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “If you simply mandated federal employees to work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., like most Americans, you’d see a mass exodus — probably a 25% thinning of the bureaucracy right there.”
Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primaries on eliminating federal agencies, and his initial targets included the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.
Trump said Tuesday that the new department would exist “outside of Government,” giving advice to those in the White House about overhauling federal agencies. The arrangement would also be likely to allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.
Trump said he wanted the department to help deliver “drastic change,” and he compared its ambitions to those of the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.
“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”
He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for the department to conclude its work.
In his broader efforts to pare down the government, Trump could seek to ask Congress give him “presidential reorganization authority” under the Presidential Reorganization Act to permit him to consolidate, reorganize or eliminate agencies within the executive branch. The last time Congress gave a president such authority was during the Reagan administration.
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