Trump selects Elon Musk to lead government efficiency department

Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, Donald Trump said on Tuesday.

Trump said in a statement that Musk and Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.

Musk had pushed for a government efficiency department and has since relentlessly promoted it, emphasizing the acronym for the agency: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive Shiba Inu. Trump said the agency will be conducting a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.

Ramaswamy, meanwhile, is a wealthy biotech entrepreneur whose first time running for office was for the Republican party nomination last year. He told ABC earlier this week that he was having “high-impact discussions” about possible roles in Trump’s cabinet.

He also has no government experience, but has pushed for cost-cutting in the corporate sector. After building a stake in the struggling online media firm Buzzfeed, he urged the company in May to cut staff and hire conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson.

Musk, speaking to reporters last month, stated a goal of reducing government spending by $2tn. Practically speaking, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk’s universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink.