United States President-elect Donald Trump has appointed tech billionaire and his supporter, Elon Musk, to lead an ad-hoc Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for his incoming administration.
Trump announced that Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech investor, will work with the SpaceX and Tesla founder on the assignment to “dismantle” bureaucracy and slash government bogus spending.
Trump announced the appointments of Musk and Ramaswamy amid a flurry of press releases on Tuesday evening, which also saw several senior national security positions filled.
The pair will provide external advice to the White House on how to “drive large scale structural reform,” said Trump.
Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy would work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to tackle “massive waste and fraud” in the annual $6.5trn (£5.1trn) government spending.
Earlier, Trump announced the nomination of the Fox News host and combat veteran Pete Hegseth to be his defence secretary and named former Texas congressman and federal prosecutor John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA.
Musk, who was a mega-donor to the Trump campaign, has been hotly tipped for a role in the administration, the BBC reports.
Ramaswamy ran as a Republican candidate for president earlier this year against Trump, before dropping out and endorsing him.
In Tuesday night’s announcement, Trump said the DOGE initiative would help the administration “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies.”
Musk recently called for at least $2trn in cuts to federal spending, which is nearly a third of the government’s budget, without offering specifics.
He also proposed eliminating hundreds of federal agencies, arguing that many of them have overlapping areas of responsibility.
Trump has likened the new department to the Manhattan Project, a top-secret World War II programme to develop the first nuclear weapons.
The president-elect said Musk and Ramaswamy would complete their work no later than July 4, 2026, which will concide with 250th America’s Independence Day.
“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Trump wrote.
Reacting to the development, Musk said, “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people.”
After the announcement, Musk also posted on his X (formerly Twitter) platform, “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Ramaswamy reposted Trump’s announcement on social media, saying: “we will not go gently.”
He also said he was withdrawing from consideration to fill the incoming US Vice-President JD Vance’s soon-to-be-vacated Ohio Senate seat.
Last year, while running for president, Ramaswamy said he would fire more than 75% of the federal workforce and close down several major agencies, including the Department of Education, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Since Trump’s election victory last week, Musk has reportedly spent every day with Trump at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
He also took part in a recent phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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