President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he has picked South African-born billionaire Elon Musk to co-lead his newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In a post on his official X account, Trump, 78, said Musk will co-lead the agency with Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican member who vied for the party’s 2024 presidential candidacy before he later endorsed the president-elect after dropping out of the race.
Trump in his statement described the pair as “wonderful Americans” and said they “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement.”
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“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time,” Trump continued.
“To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will 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.”
Trump also said he was looking forward to the pair “making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans.”
He continued: “Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending. They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to ‘WE THE PEOPLE.’”
Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy “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. I am confident they will succeed!” the president-elect added.
In the wake of the announcement, Musk, who actively campaigned for Trump, took to social media to state that “all actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.”
“Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!” the 53-year-old billionaire added. “We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining,” he concluded with laughing emojis.
But Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights NGO, said in a statement that Musk is not fit for the job, The Guardian reported. “Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack,” co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement.
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