The US president-elect Donald Trump has said that Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending.”
Trump affirmed that their work would conclude by 4 July 2026, adding that a smaller and more efficient government would be a “gift” to the country on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America,” Trump said.
The proposed department appears to have been inspired by a conversation Trump had on the campaign trail with Musk, one of his most prominent supporters.
On August 13, the two men sat down for a two-hour live broadcast on Musk’s social media platform X, where the billionaire pitched Trump on the idea of forming a new “commission” to crack down on government waste.
“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump replied. “I need an Elon Musk. I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts.”
He later revisited the idea on the campaign trail, including at a September appearance before the New York Economic Club.
“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said at the time.
It is unclear how the new department will function once it is established. Tuesday’s statement indicated that Ramaswamy and Musk would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government”.
The appointments reward two of Mr Trump’s biggest supporters from the private sector.
Mr Musk leads electric car company Tesla, social media platform X and rocket company SpaceX, while Mr Ramaswamy is the founder of a pharmaceutical company who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Mr Trump and then threw his support behind the former president after dropping out.
Mr Musk gave millions of dollars to support Mr Trump’s presidential campaign and made public appearances with him.
Mr Trump had said he would offer Mr Musk, who is the world’s richest person, a role in his administration promoting government efficiency.
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” the X CEO said, according to Mr Trump’s statement.
In the statement, the South African-born billionaire called the new government initiative “potentially ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” referring to the US plan to build the atomic bomb that helped end World War II.
Mr Trump has also nominated Peter Hegeseth, a Fox News presenter, to be his secretary of defence.
Mr Hegeseth served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a junior officer in the Minnesota National Guard before joining Fox News, and has spoken frequently about firing generals and admirals he accuses of being woke or politically correct.
He has no experience of working in the Pentagon.
Later today, Mr Trump will meet President Joe Biden in the White House, as part of the process of the orderly transition of power.