President-Elect Donald Trump announced that entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a commission to improve the efficiency of the federal government.
The newly founded Department of Government Efficiency will help the Trump administration “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies,” according to a statement released by Trump on social media.
The work of the Department of Government Efficiency will conclude no later than July 4, 2026, as a “perfect gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
Musk said in a statement that the project “will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people.” The chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX vowed that the findings and actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for “maximum transparency,” such that the public can offer feedback as well as observe a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.”
Ramaswamy, an investment manager and former biopharmaceutical executive who ran for the Republican presidential nomination, also said that the Department of Government Efficiency will start “crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, and abuse” since Americans “voted for drastic government reform” and therefore “deserve to be part of fixing” the government.
Trump noted that the Department of Government Efficiency is not a formal agency but will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” to the Office of Management and Budget, as well as “create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before.”
The creation of the new initiative comes after Musk vocally backed the Trump campaign and launched a political action committee supportive of his election to a second term. Musk predicted at one rally last month that he could remove $2 trillion from the current $6.5 trillion federal budget if asked by Trump to spearhead a government efficiency commission.
