Trump names Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head ‘efficiency department’

President-elect Trump on Tuesday named Elon Musk and onetime Republican presidential wannabe Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, calling it “the Manhattan Project of our time.”

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, has claimed he could slash $2 trillion from federal spending, nearly a third of what the government spends in a year. Ramaswamy, for his part, has said he wants to trigger mass layoffs at federal agencies, even going so far as to shut them down, as NBC News reported in 2023.

Despite its name, the department is not a government agency, and Trump said the pair would offer “advice and guidance” to the White House in partnership with the Office of Management and Budget, which is a government agency.

“I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE),” Trump said in a statement from his transition team Tuesday evening, calling them “two wonderful Americans” poised to help his administration “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies — Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement.”

DOGE is an apparent nod to the cryptocurrency and meme known as dogecoin favored and promoted by Musk.

Musk promised the efficiency initiative would “send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!”

Ramaswamy believes the U.S. Supreme Court would back him up against any challenges to his government-gutting.

Trump touted the “drastic change” as a longtime dream of Republicans to “create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before.”

It was not clear how the organization would operate, since it’s not a government agency. It could fall under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which sets ground rules on how external advisory groups operate and remain accountable to the public. Federal employees must disclose connections and assets that could lead to potential conflicts of interest and must divest themselves of any large-scale holdings related to their work.

But Musk and Ramaswamy would not legally be subject to those requirements or ethical restraints.

With News Wire Services