What is DOGE, the new department Musk and Ramaswamy will lead under the Trump administration?

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will join forces to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE, for short), President-elect Donald Trump announced. But what will the department do?

Named in an apparent nod to the meme cryptocurrency dogecoin, DOGE is not actually a government agency. Instead, it will work outside the government to "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said in a statement.

The specifics of how the department will operate aren't yet known, but it's clear its two leads, Musk and Ramaswamy, will wield influence under the Trump administration, partnering with the Office of Management and Budget and advising the president.

"It will become, potentially, 'The Manhattan Project' of our time," Trump said.

DOGE is on a deadline. It will finish work by July 4, 2026, according to Trump's statement.

"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," he wrote.

Musk, billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election. Ramaswamy, another entrepreneur, threw his support behind Trump since suspending his own campaign for the presidency in January.

In the wake of the announcement, Ramaswamy said they would start "crowdsourcing examples" of fraud and waste, and pursue a "massive downsizing" of the government. One place he suggested starting with is defunding programs that Congress hasn't reauthorized.

"We shouldn’t let the government spend money on programs that have expired. Yet that’s exactly what happens today: half a *trillion* dollars of taxpayer funds ($516 B+) goes each year to programs which Congress has allowed to expire. There are 1,200+ programs that are no longer authorized but still receive appropriations. This is totally nuts. We can & should save hundreds of billions each year by defunding government programs that Congress no longer authorizes," he wrote on X.

Musk said he sought to "delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good," but didn't immediately divulge specifics in his post on X.

Musk at one point suggested he could find more than $2 trillion in savings — nearly a third of total annual government spending.

DOGE could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.

Federal employees are generally required to disclose their assets and entanglements to ward off any potential conflicts of interest, and to divest significant holdings relating to their work. Because Musk and Ramaswamy would not be formal federal workers, they would not face those requirements or ethical limitations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.