Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ in Trump administration

CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump introduced Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a brand new “Division of Authorities Effectivity” in his second administration.

“Collectively, these two fantastic Individuals will pave the best way for my Administration to dismantle Authorities Forms, slash extra rules, lower wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Companies,” Trump stated in an announcement.

The announcement of Ramaswamy and notably Musk, who leads corporations with current, profitable authorities contracts, raises fast questions on potential conflicts of curiosity. It isn’t instantly clear how the division – which Trump stated would “present recommendation and steering from outdoors of Authorities” – would function, and whether or not a Congress even totally managed by Republicans would have the urge for food to approve such an enormous overhaul of presidency spending and operations.

Trump had proposed the creation of a authorities effectivity fee as a part of a slate of latest financial plans that he unveiled in early September. On the time, he stated Musk had agreed to guide it if he had been to safe a return to the White Home.

Trump’s assertion Tuesday night time quoted Musk as saying that “it will ship shockwaves by means of the system, and anybody concerned in Authorities waste, which is lots of people!”

Ramaswamy individually responded on X with a slogan he typically used throughout his presidential marketing campaign to name for the elimination of federal businesses, writing: “SHUT IT DOWN.”

On the marketing campaign path, Trump pointed to his proposed authorities effectivity fee as a technique to cut back authorities spending. “As the primary order of enterprise, this fee will develop an motion plan to completely remove fraud and improper funds inside six months,” he stated in September. “This may save trillions of {dollars}.”

Ramaswamy, who beforehand challenged Trump within the Republican presidential major earlier than endorsing him in January, made decreasing waste in authorities spending a key coverage platform for his marketing campaign.

Final yr, Ramaswamy – who had promised on the marketing campaign path to remove the FBI, the Division of Training and the Nuclear Regulatory Fee, which might lay off 1000’s of federal employees within the course of – launched a white paper outlining a authorized framework he stated would permit the president to remove federal businesses of his selection.

Musk, for his half, stated whereas supporting Trump on the marketing campaign path that he’d pitch an enormous rollback of presidency rules, of which he has lengthy griped. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has additionally floated an evaluation system that threatens layoffs to wasteful staff and proposed providing beneficiant severance packages to laid-off authorities employees.

Musk first instructed Trump type a authorities effectivity fee and appoint him to it in an August dialog between the 2 hosted on X. Trump responded, “I’d like it.”

A couple of days later, Musk posted on X a picture of himself at a podium labeled Division of Authorities Effectivity and D.O.G.E., the title of Musk’s favourite meme and cryptocurrency. “I’m prepared to serve,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, he pledged on X that such an workplace would submit all of its actions on-line for transparency and teased “a leaderboard for many insanely dumb spending of your tax {dollars}.”

The work of the division, Trump stated in his assertion, will finish no later than July 4, 2026. “A smaller Authorities, with extra effectivity and fewer forms, would be the good present to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence. I’m assured they are going to succeed!” he stated.

Musk, who slashed workers after shopping for Twitter – now X – in 2022, has embraced the concept of being the “Secretary of Value-Slicing,” as Trump referred to as him in a Fox Information interview final month.

Requested by Trump-Vance transition workforce co-chair Howard Lutnick at a rally final month how a lot he might lower out of the nation’s $6.5 trillion finances, Musk responded: “Nicely, I believe we might do at the least $2 trillion.”

“Your cash is being wasted, and the Division of Authorities Effectivity goes to repair that,” Musk stated on the Madison Sq. Backyard rally in New York Metropolis. “We’re going to get the federal government off your again and out of your pocketbook.”

(The federal authorities spent $6.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, in line with the Treasury Division.)

However specialists have voiced doubts about Musk with the ability to slash anyplace close to $2 trillion.

Talking at The Financial Membership of New York Tuesday, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers stated that Musk can be fortunate to search out $200 billion in federal finances cuts for the reason that scope for curbing waste is proscribed.

Glenn Hubbard, an economist and former dean of Columbia College’s Enterprise Faculty, stated it might be very difficult to slash that a lot spending if curiosity bills, entitlement applications and protection had been off limits.

“It’s simply mathematically inconceivable to search out $2 trillion,” Hubbard, a former chairman of the US Council of Financial Advisers within the George W. Bush administration, stated on the Financial Membership.

Trump and congressional Republicans have lengthy pointed to combating waste, fraud and abuse as methods to save lots of the federal authorities cash. However that chorus is “typically an excuse to do nothing,” Marc Goldwein, senior coverage director for the Committee for a Accountable Federal Price range, instructed CNN when Trump first mentioned making a authorities effectivity fee.

The fee must be given a broad mandate to assessment the most important federal spending applications – Social Safety, Medicare and protection – to be handiest, Goldwein stated.

A essential union for federal employees, who’re already bracing for the chance of a purge throughout the second Trump administration, additionally blasted the concept of a authorities effectivity fee.

“Elon Musk and Donald Trump care about one factor: lining their very own pockets. Not authorities effectivity, and definitely not making issues higher for on a regular basis Individuals,” American Federation of Authorities Staff Nationwide President Everett Kelley stated in an announcement in early September.

This story has been up to date with further particulars.

CNN’s David Goldman contributed to this report.