Donald Trump Taps Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to Lead Nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency

President-elect Donald Trump announced contiguous that helium would beryllium appointing billionaire Elon Musk and erstwhile Republican statesmanlike campaigner Vivek Ramaswamy to caput a caller Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) upon taking bureau successful 2025. The acronym DOGE appears to beryllium a reference to the integer currency dogecoin, of which Musk is simply a fan.

“These 2 fantastic Americans volition pave the mode for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, chopped wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” stated the announcement from Trump.

The connection did not connection specifics connected the quality of DOGE, but did accidental that it would “provide proposal and guidance from extracurricular of Government,” and that it would “partner with the White House of the Office of Management & Budget.”

In September, Trump said that helium would make a government ratio commission that Musk would run. Musk has called for cutting $2 trillion successful national spending. In 2023, the authorities spent $1.7 cardinal successful discretionary funds. On X, Musk has already alluded to departments and areas he’d purpose to cut, including the Department of Education and backing for National Public Radio.

Musk has been 1 of Trump’s astir ardent supporters. During the campaign, helium poured adjacent to $200 million into his governmental enactment committee (PAC), the America PAC, which helium utilized to enactment Trump’s campaign. He besides appeared with him astatine a rally successful Butler, Pennsylvania, and held townhalls crossed the authorities to drum up enactment for the erstwhile president. Musk besides utilized his ain celebrity, and X, the societal media level that helium owns, to bolster the Trump campaign’s talking points, and promote followers to ballot for Trump. A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) recovered that Musk’s governmental posts connected X betwixt erstwhile helium endorsed Trump and the extremity of October garnered 17.1 cardinal views.

In his Tuesday statement, the president-elect said that Musk and Ramaswamy would reason their enactment successful the caller section “no aboriginal than July 4, 2026.”