Rethinking the organization of federal agencies, fighting fraud, relaxing regulations deemed too strict, Elon Musk will aim to target, on behalf of the White House, “unnecessary spending”.
A position with still vague contours. Elon Musk was named head of a new department of “government efficiency” this Tuesday, November 12 by Donald Trump. A department for which he will work jointly with Republican businessman and former primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy starting next January 2025.
This department was the idea of the owner of X himself. His goal? Advise the White House on cutting and optimizing federal spending. “I think it would be great to create a government efficiency commission that would ensure that taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent wisely,” the businessman proposed last August.
For Donald Trump, the two men must help him “carry out large-scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before”.
Specifically, he expects them to “dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce excessive regulations, wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies.”
The Republican billionaire compared this plan to the “Manhattan Project”, the secret project to build the atomic bomb during World War II.
Objective: save a third of the national budget
The Department of Government EfficiencyDOGE – a nod to Elon Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency – will aim to rethink the organization of federal agencies, based on the principle that some overlap or to estimate the personnel to be laid off in order to compensate for “a massive waste.
The richest man in the world, who was a key figure in the home stretch of the American presidential campaign, is considered by Donald Trump as “the best cutter”. He was particularly noted during his takeover of Twitter, renamed X: he had laid off thousands of employees.
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Even before his appointment, Elon Musk had set himself the goal of saving “$2,000 billion on federal spending,” or about a third of the national budget. A figure which “is out of reach without slashing the main expenditure items which are pay-as-you-go pensions (Social Security) and health insurance for the elderly (Medicare), which Donald Trump nevertheless promised to preserve”, underlines the newspaper Le Monde.
Currently in the viewfinder? The Ministry of Education, which the president-elect had simply considered abolishing, or even the FBI, particularly targeted by Vivek Ramaswamy. The latter has also promised to dismiss more than 75% of federal civil servants, recalls the British media The Independent.
DOGE will also have to help fight “fraud” or even relax the federal regulations that Elon Musk complains about because they sometimes concern his companies.
A position until July 2026
The Tesla director said after his appointment that “all actions of the Department of Government Effectiveness will be published online for maximum transparency.”
“Whenever the public thinks we are reducing something important or not reducing something wasteful, let us know!” he added in the message to also a ranking of the stupidest expenses of your taxes It will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.
Donald Trump has given Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy a goal of completing their work no later than July 4, 2026, American Independence Day. “A smaller, more efficient, less bureaucratic government will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” the president-elect wrote.
This new department will not be part of the federal government but will operate “outside” working with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. Not being a real new ministry, DOGE will not be subject to the mandatory vote of Congress or the confirmation vote of the Senate.
A risk of conflict of interest
It is not yet known what the DOGE budget will be or how many people will be employed to ensure its operation. Nor if Elon Musk will temporarily disengage from the management of his companies in order to ensure his mission. A scenario that he rejects for the moment. Not being appointed within the federal government itself, nothing obliges him to do so.
Concerns thus arise about potential conflicts of interest. “He has a big company that sells electric vehicles, a big company that sells satellites, he has a social media platform. In all of these areas, one can imagine his advice being biased by the fact that he has strong economic interests,” Nikolas Guggenberger, a law professor at the University of Houston, told Reuters.
The New York Times also said that this position would give him the “power to regulate the regulators who exercise influence over his companies”. For example, SpaceX must obtain approvals for rocket launches and new technologies, and auto regulators are scrutinizing the safety of Tesla’s self-driving technology.
The question of their real room for maneuver also arises. “Numerous audits have already been carried out and recommendations already made for greater efficiency” in the past, notes Cristina Chaplain, former director of the body responsible for controlling the public accounts of the United States federal budget. Additionally, these recommendations “often conflict with the reality of government operations and laws and regulations.”
