President-elect Donald Trump named tech billionaire Elon Musk and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy on Tuesday to head up a new Department of Government Efficiency, fulfilling a campaign pledge to give Musk sweeping oversight of government spending.
Trump, in a statement posted to social media, said the department will help to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and slash excess regulations. The name of the agency, DOGE for short, is a reference to a meme and cryptocurrency associated with Musk.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is a GOP frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race. Here’s what you need to know about the conservative candidate.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in the statement released by the transition team.
On X, he added: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. He has provided few details on what he’d like to cut, though he has attacked relatively small recipients of federal money such as the Department of Education and NPR.
Musk has said the cuts would mean “temporary hardship” for some Americans.
Ramaswamy has called for mass layoffs at federal agencies, a tactic that could sidestep legal protections that otherwise insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.
Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primary on eliminating federal agencies, and he gave initial targets including the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.
Trump said the department would exist “outside of Government,” giving advice to those in the White House on overhauling federal agencies. The arrangement would also likely allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.
Trump said he wanted the department to help deliver “drastic change,” and he compared its ambitions to the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.
“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”
He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for the department to conclude its work.
The announcement brings together two of Trump’s most high-profile surrogates from the tech industry, though they have vastly different backgrounds.
Threat to democracy?
Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is among the wealthiest people in the world and the owner of the social media platform X. A newcomer to electoral politics, his super PAC spent more than $152 million to elect Trump and other Republican candidates this year.
SpaceX has $3.6 billion in contracts with federal agencies this year, according to government data. It’s not clear if that spending is on the table for possible cuts.
Ramaswamy ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination against Trump, dropping out in January after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses. He’s the founder of a biotech company, Roivant Sciences.
Trump did not immediately provide details on how the two men would work together or on who might pay for the operations of the department if it operates outside the federal government.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
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