Donald Trump has announced that Elon Musk will head up the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency in his second administration alongside venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy.
Under Musk, the new office – which will operate “outside of government” – will advise on gutting federal departments and which staff should be fired if it deems they are a “massive waste.”
Trump vowed that Musk and Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk threatened.
So far, details about DOGE – which shares its acronym with the dogecoin cryptocurrency favored by Musk – remain scarce.
Trump’s announcement has characterized the department as an advisory board that will “provide guidance outside of government.”
Musk and Ramaswamy’s work will conclude “no later than July 4, 2026,” the announcement added – 18 months after Trump takes office.
It is not known how big a budget DOGE will have, how many people it will itself employ, or how much of the American taxpayers’ dollars it will require.
What we do know is that the Tesla CEO intends to slash “at least $2 trillion” from the nation’s budget, or roughly by one-third.
Since the announcement, Musk reposted claims on his social media platform X that $20,000 of American tax dollars are spent on drag shows in Ecuador, $750,000 to operate the fire alarm at the New York Metropolitan Opera House, and $350,000 to develop AI smart toilets.
The world’s richest man has wanted this for a while.
On August 20, not long after publicly backing Trump in the presidential election, Musk made it known he was “willing to serve.”
He posted an AI-generated image of himself at a podium branded: “Department of Government Efficiency.”
The SpaceX CEO also spoke about his intentions and the potential impacts of the plans on the campaign trail. At a virtual town hall event, Musk warned that if Trump was reelected, their plans for the economy would likely call for “temporary hardship” for Americans.
