Billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency tasked to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
On the campaign trail, Trump said the government efficiency effort would develop a plan to eliminate “fraud and improper payments,” conducting a “complete financial and performance audit” of the federal government. On Tuesday, Trump said the panel would partner with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and said their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026 — the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Musk predicted he could cut at least $2 trillion from the US federal budget at Trump’s rally last month at Madison Square Garden, though that would exceed the amount Congress spends annually on government agency operations, including defense. It would likely require making significant cuts to popular entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits.
Last fiscal year, the government spent more than $6.75 trillion, with more than $5.3 trillion of that coming from Social Security, health care, defense and veterans’ benefits — all of which are politically fraught and notoriously difficult to convince Congress to cut — as well as interest on the debt.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people,” Musk said Tuesday in a statement provided by the Trump transition effort.