Elon Musk already has his position. He will direct the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in charge of a “drastic” reform of the Administration, together with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The richest man in the world does not mess around. “This will shake the system and all those involved in government waste, and there are many,” he declared after the announcement by President-elect Donald Trump. Musk and Ramaswamy arrive with the knife in their teeth, ready to fire thousands of officials and make the Government run like a company. The statement compares its task to the Manhattan Project, with which the United States developed the atomic bomb.
“I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, in collaboration with American patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE),” Trump announced in a statement. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, dramatically reduce excess regulations, cut wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies, essential to the Save America movement,” he added.
Although named after a statutory body, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside the Government. “He will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to drive large-scale structural reform, and create a business-like approach to government never seen before,” Trump says. Staying out of the Cabinet will allow Musk to free himself from the regime of incompatibilities and conflicts of interest in public office.
“We will end the massive waste and fraud that exists in our $6.5 trillion annual government spending,” maintains Trump, during whose first term the public deficit and federal debt skyrocketed. The task entrusted to the two billionaires has a fixed date: July 4, 2026, the day of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the States. “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift” for that anniversary, Trump says.
Elon Musk has even said that two trillion dollars could be cut from public spending, although without explaining how. Economists are skeptical about that possibility, unless basic service policies, including social security, are touched on. “We need the Department of Government Efficiency,” Musk said last month at one of his rallies, highlighting its acronym, DOGE, a nod to Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency derived from bitcoin that uses a dog as a pet and that somehow he sponsor “DOGE on a bronze plaque. “It’s going to be incredible,” he added before acknowledging that his plans involve massive layoffs of officials. The tycoon, with a fortune valued at $319 billion, said the layoffs would be generous, like two annuities or something like that.
His position will give Musk power over regulators he believes are holding back the development of Tesla and SpaceX, his rocket and satellite company. The DOGE aims to prevent excessive regulations and curtail the power of government agencies. This can benefit it both in the development of its autonomous cars (where it has had clashes with the current authorities) and in the launch of its rockets. In some way, it can become the regulator – or deregulator – of regulators.
In a recent conference call with analysts to present Tesla’s results, he made clear that he will benefit himself by creating a simpler path to federal approval of autonomous vehicles instead of the complicated state regulations that exist now. The shares of the electric car company have skyrocketed on the stock market after Trump’s victory and the company has exceeded a trillion dollars in capitalization for the first time since 2022. Meanwhile, its companies will continue to have juicy contracts with the Administration.
Vivek Ramaswamy, for his part, ran unsuccessfully in the Republican presidential primaries. From the beginning he played the role of a millennial Trumpist, devoted to the former president’s policies. When he retired, he gave his full support to the now president-elect. He was aspiring to a position in the Trump Administration and trying to qualify for it. He is in favor of massive layoffs of officials and drastic cuts in public spending. He even talked about dispensing with 75% of public employees.
During his primary campaign he proposed abolishing agencies such as the Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Abolishing general agencies and bodies generally requires congressional approval. The dismissal of officials can be facilitated by a decree that eliminates protections from Trump himself, who already issued one in that sense, later reversed by Joe Biden.
Musk has been one of the unexpected protagonists of the presidential campaign. Already in May it was learned that Trump was counting on him for his team if he won the elections. Later, the candidate himself confirmed that he would entrust him with a “drastic” reform of the Administration if he were elected. Even at Tesla’s June shareholder meeting, Musk talked about his relationship with the Republican, and how he sometimes called him. “He calls me for no reason. “I don’t know why, but it does,” he said.
The South African-born tycoon donated $75 million in the third quarter to an organization he created, America PAC, to boost Trump’s campaign, although it is estimated that in total he contributed about $200 million. He openly called for a vote for Trump after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. In that same place he participated for the first time in a rally with him a month before the elections and shamelessly joined his hoaxes about immigration, freedom of expression and weapons.
Musk later continued campaigning alone, especially in Pennsylvania, with rallies in which politics was mixed with trips to Mars. In one of them, some supposed million-dollar raffles for registered voters were pulled out of the hat, sparking controversy. The Department of Justice warned him that they could be illegal, but it turned a deaf ear. The Philadelphia prosecutor filed a lawsuit to stop them without success and Musk’s lawyers then recognized that they were not actually random, but that the winners were chosen.
He was so active in seeking votes for Trump and in spreading hoaxes that even the president, Joe Biden, referred to his supposed temporary status as an illegal immigrant when he was a student and went to work without a visa to do so. Musk continued campaigning with Trump, including the Madison Square Garden rally in New York, and accompanied the Republican at the party celebrating his electoral victory.
The magnate has assured that he will keep his political organization alive after the elections. He will be in charge of registering Republican voters in key districts throughout the country to prepare for the special elections and for Trump’s midterm legislative elections, to be held in November 2026, as announced on his social network, X. In addition, he also wants to play a significant role in the primaries, he added. That will mean supporting their preferred candidates within the Republican Party.
