US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday appointed tech billionaire Elon Musk and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy to head the new Department of Government Efficiency, making good on Musk’s campaign promise to rein in sweeping government spending.
Trump said that a etcteating at to social media said the department would help “dismantle the Government Bureaucracy” and reduce excessive regulations. The name of the agency, DOGE for short, is a meme reference and a cryptocurrency Associated with Musk.
“It’s going to send shockwaves through the system and anyone dealing with Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in a statement released by the transition team.
In X he added: “A threat to democracy? No, a threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Musk said he wanted to 2 trillion dollars cut from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. While he attacked relatively small recipients of federal money, such as the Education Department and NPR, he gave few details about what he wanted to cut.
Musk said the cuts would make sense.temporary difficulty“for some people.
Ramaswamy called massive cuts in federal agenciesa tactic that would otherwise circumvent legal protections that insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.
Ramaswamy ran for president in the Republican primaries on dismantling federal agencies, and his initial targets included the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Department of Education; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Department of Agriculture.
Trump has advised the White House on an overhaul of federal agencies, saying the department will exist “outside of government.” The deal would also allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.
Trump said he wanted the department to help “fundamental change” and compared its ambitions to the World War II nuclear weapons project.
“This will potentially become the ‘Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have been dreaming about the goals of DOGE for a long time.”
He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026 to complete the work of the department.
The announcement brings together two of Trump’s most high-profile surrogates from the tech industry, with very different backgrounds.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is among the richest people in the world and owns the social media platform X. Despite being a newcomer to electoral politics, his super PAC spent more than $152 million to elect Trump and others. Republicans this year.
SpaceX has a $3.6 billion contract with federal agencies this year government data. It’s unclear whether those costs are on the table for possible cuts.
Ramaswamy ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination against Trump to falled came out in January After finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses. He is the founder bhetech companyRoivant Sciences.
Trump did not immediately provide details on how the two would work together or who would pay for the department’s operations if it operated outside the federal government.