Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy revealed how they will reduce the size of federal agencies after President-Elect Donald Trump chose them to lead a government efficiency commission.
The two entrepreneurs will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a private advisory entity which will help the administration “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies,” according to a statement released by Trump on social media. Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal that they are now assisting the Trump transition team with hiring for the commission as they plan to reduce the spending and scale of the federal government.
DOGE will primarily focus on “regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings” as they drive change through “executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws,” relying on recent decisions from the Supreme Court to curtail regulations advanced by federal agencies and enable a reduction in the federal workforce.
“DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in The Wall Street Journal in reference to the decisions. “DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress.”
They additionally warned that the efforts from Trump mean “critics will allege executive overreach,” but noted that the actions “will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress.”
Beyond dismissing massive numbers of federal employees, Musk and Ramaswamy proposed actions like moving agency headquarters away from Washington, DC, and requiring employees to report in the office five days per week to “welcome a wave of voluntary terminations.”
Trump remarked in his statement that the work of DOGE will end no later than July 4, 2026, as a “perfect gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, an investment manager and former biopharmaceutical executive, will be asked to “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” to staffers within the White House Office of Management and Budget.
