US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are to head up the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with an eye to delivering “a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy”.
Musk and Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people,” Musk said according to the statement.
Musk had suggested the need for such a department as he supported Trump in his successful presidential campaign, the topic first arising during a public conversation held on X in August. Trump said of a government efficiency commission on that occasion, “I’d love to do it”.
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy endorsed significant cuts to government spending as part of his presidential campaign platform, his website stating that the government “has become bloated and inefficient, stifling innovation and hindering economic growth”.
“Vivek believes that we need to dismantle the managerial bureaucracy and replace it with a more agile and innovative government that can meet the needs of the 21st century,” the Vivek2024 website reads.
In his statement, Trump says that their work will finish “no later than July 4, 2026,” describing it as “the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence”.
The new department is described in the statement as “potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” referencing the US project behind the creation of the atomic bomb.
“Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time,” it says.
“To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide adviceand guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.”
Responding to the appointment, Ramaswamy said on Musk’s social media platform, X, that “DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse”.
“Americans voted for drastic government reform & they deserve to be part of fixing it,” he said.