Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, Donald Trump said Tuesday.
Despite the name, the department will not be a government agency. Trump said in a statement that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to provide the White House with “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large-scale structural reforms and create an enterprise approach to the government never before.” seen before.” He added that the move would shake up government systems.
Trump said the duo will “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce overregulation, reduce wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies.”
By posting on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk pledged to document all department actions online for “maximum transparency.”
“Any time the public thinks we’re cutting something important or not cutting something that’s wasteful, let us know!” he said, while promising to maintain “a leaderboard for the most incredibly stupid spend of your tax money.”
Ramaswamy also responded to the announcement of his appointment at
It is unclear how the organization will work. It could be included in the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how outside 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 avoid potential conflicts of interest and to divest important holdings related to their work. Since Musk and Ramaswamy would not be formal federal workers, they would not face those ethical requirements or limitations.
Musk had pushed to create a government efficiency department and has since promoted it tirelessly, emphasizing the agency’s acronym: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive Shiba Inu and the name of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, which Musk promotes. Trump said the agency will conduct a “comprehensive financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and make recommendations for dramatic reforms.”
Dogecoin’s value has more than doubled since Election Day, following a surge in cryptocurrency markets on expectations of softer regulation under the Trump administration. Tesla shares are up about 30% since the election.
Trump said his work would conclude on July 4, 2026, adding that a smaller, more efficient government would be a “gift” to the country on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Ramaswamy is a wealthy biotechnology entrepreneur whose first bid was for the Republican Party nomination last year. After dropping out of the race, he supported Trump. He told ABC earlier this week that he was having “high-impact discussions” about possible roles in Trump’s Cabinet.
He also has no experience in government, but has pushed to cut costs in the corporate sector. After acquiring a stake in struggling online media company Buzzfeed, he urged the company in May to cut staff and hire conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson.
Musk, speaking to reporters last month, set a goal of reducing government spending by $2 trillion. In practice, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk’s universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink.
Adding a government portfolio to Musk’s plate could benefit the market value of his companies and favor businesses like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies.
Equity analyst Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a research note: “It’s clear that Musk will have an outsized role in the Trump White House with his growing reach across many federal agencies.”
But Musk’s appointment was criticized by Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights NGO that questioned several of the policies of Trump’s first term. “Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, but his own businesses have regularly broken the very rules he will be in a position to attack,” co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement.
Trump had made it clear that Musk would likely not take on any type of full-time position, given his other commitments.
“I don’t think I can hire him full time because he’s kind of busy launching rockets and all the things he does,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in September. “He said the waste in this country is crazy. And we are going to get Elon Musk to be our cost reducer.”
