It’s official: Trump hands Musk efficiency role in new administration
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said Elon Musk would help lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy as leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle the Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
It’s unclear whether the Department of Government Efficiency will exist as a government agency, though in his announcement Trump said the office would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He also said the endeavor could become “‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time.”
On the campaign trail, Musk, who poured millions of dollars into electing Trump, regularly teased a role in a second Trump administration and spoke frequently about his desire to curb federal government spending.
The federal government’s spending in the 2024 fiscal year was $6.75 trillion.
“Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending,” Trump said Tuesday. “Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026 – 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.”
Nine-tenths of the government’s spending each year goes to federal programs, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Nearly a quarter of the budget — 24%, or $1.6 trillion — goes to health-insurance programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act marketplace health-insurance subsidies.
An additional 21%, or $1.4 trillion, of the budget goes to Social Security, which provides benefits to retired workers.
Another 13%, or $820 billion, of the budget is spent on defense initiatives, operations and maintenance, military personnel, and weapons procurement.
In a post on X made soon after the announcement, Musk said all of the Department of Government Efficiency’s actions would be posted online “for maximum transparency.”
“Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!” Musk wrote. “We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.”
Political scientists previously told B-17 that Musk’s ideas for government efficiency and budget cuts misunderstood a fundamental element of US federalism — namely, that profit is not the be-all and end-all — because the government’s job isn’t to make money, as with businesses, but to regulate and keep people safe.
