CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency in his second administration.
“Together, these two great Americans will help my administration dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce overregulation, reduce wasteful spending, and rebuild our federal agencies,” President Trump said in a statement. It will pave the way for us to do so.”
The announcement by Mr. Ramaswamy and especially Mr. Musk, who heads a company with existing lucrative government contracts, immediately raised questions about possible conflicts of interest. How the department, which President Trump said would “provide advice and guidance from outside the government,” would operate, even with a Congress fully controlled by Republicans, would be unable to handle such massive government spending. It is not immediately clear whether there is any appetite for approving a review of government spending. operation.
President Trump had proposed creating a government efficiency commission as part of his new economic plan announced in early September. At the time, he said he had agreed to lead Musk if it would ensure his return to the White House.
In President Trump’s statement Tuesday night, Musk was quoted as saying, “This is going to be a shock to the entire system, and it’s going to be a shock to a lot of people who are involved in government waste!” .
Separately, Ramaswamy responded to X by telling him to “shut up,” a slogan he often used during his presidential campaign to call for the removal of federal agencies.
On the campaign trail, Trump pointed to the Commission on Efficiency’s proposals as a way to cut government spending. “As a top priority, this committee will develop an action plan to completely eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” he said in September. “This will save us trillions of dollars.”
Ramaswamy, who previously challenged Trump in the Republican presidential primary and endorsed Trump in January, made reducing wasteful government spending a key policy platform of his campaign.
Last year, during his campaign, Mr. Ramaswamy promised to eliminate the FBI, the Department of Education and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, saying he would lay off thousands of federal employees in the process and outlined a legal framework. A white paper was published. Allows the president to abolish federal agencies of his choice.
While supporting Trump during his campaign, Musk said he would advocate for large-scale rollbacks of government regulations that he had long complained about. The CEOs of Tesla and SpaceX have also proposed a review system that threatens to fire employees who overspend, and offers generous severance packages to fired government workers.
During a conversation between the two on the I want to,” he replied.
A few days later, Musk posted an image to X of himself at a podium labeled DOGE, the name of the Department of Government Efficiency and Musk’s favorite meme and cryptocurrency. “I am willing to serve,” he wrote.
On Tuesday, he promised X that such offices would post all their actions online to ensure transparency, and teased a “leaderboard of the stupidest spending of our tax dollars.”
President Trump said in a statement that the department’s work will end no later than July 4, 2026. “A smaller government with more efficiency and less bureaucracy would be the perfect gift to America as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.” I’m sure they will succeed! ” he said.
Musk, who cut jobs after buying Twitter (now known as
Asked by Trump-Vance transition team co-chairman Howard Lutnick at a rally last month how much the nation’s $6.5 trillion budget could be cut, Musk said, “I think we can do it by at least $2 trillion.” answered.
“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix it,” Musk said at a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. “We’ll get the government off your back and out of your wallet.”
(According to the Treasury Department, the federal government spent $6.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024).
But experts have voiced doubts about whether Mr. Musk will be able to cut nearly $2 trillion.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, speaking at the New York Economic Club on Tuesday, said Mr. Musk would be lucky to cut $200 billion in the federal budget because there is only so much he can do to cut waste.
Economist Glenn Hubbard, former dean of Columbia University’s business school, said it would be very difficult to reduce spending by that much if interest, entitlement programs and defense were limited.
“Finding $2 trillion is mathematically impossible,” Hubbard, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration, told the Economic Club.
President Trump and Congressional Republicans have long pointed to fighting waste, fraud and abuse as a way to save the federal government money. But that restraint “often becomes an excuse for doing nothing,” said Mark Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, when Trump first discussed creating a government efficiency commission. told CNN.
Goldwein said the committee needs broad powers to make the biggest federal spending programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and defense, most effective.
Major unions for federal employees, already bracing for possible purges under the second Trump administration, also slammed the Government Efficiency Commission initiative.
“Elon Musk and Donald Trump only care about one thing: filling their own bellies. It’s not about government efficiency, and it’s certainly not about making things better for ordinary Americans.” Everett Kelly, national president of the American Federation of Public Employees, said in a statement in early September.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s David Goldman contributed to this report.
