Trump says Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head a new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’

Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. He has provided few details about what he’d like to cut, though he has attacked relatively small recipients of federal money, such as the Education Department and NPR.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to get rid of the Department of Education.

Musk has said the cuts would mean “temporary hardship” for some people.

Ramaswamy has called for mass layoffs at federal agencies, a tactic that could sidestep legal protections that otherwise insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.

He said on X this week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “If you simply mandated federal employees to work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., like most Americans, you’d see a mass exodus — probably a 25% thinning of the bureaucracy right there.”

Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primaries on eliminating federal agencies, and his initial targets included the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.

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Trump said Tuesday that the new department would exist “outside of Government,” giving advice to those in the White House about overhauling federal agencies. The arrangement would also be likely to allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.

Trump said he wanted the department to help deliver “drastic change,” and he compared its ambitions to those of the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”

He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for the department to conclude its work.

In his broader efforts to pare down the government, Trump could seek to ask Congress give him “presidential reorganization authority” under the Presidential Reorganization Act to permit him to consolidate, reorganize or eliminate agencies within the executive branch. The last time Congress gave a president such authority was during the Reagan administration.

Trump could also take steps to eliminate federal worker jobs by re-signing his “Schedule F” executive order, which would reclassify tens of thousands of federal civil workers as political at-will positions as a means of either installing politically aligned workers or removing a chunk of the federal workforce altogether.

Trump signed that executive order in October 2020; President Joe Biden rolled it back.

The Government Accountability Office, the main federal government watchdog, indicated it would provide any necessary information to Trump’s new entity.

“GAO has cooperated and shared information in the past when presidential or congressional commissions have been established to address the federal government’s programs and operations, as well as fiscal and other challenges. We will take that same approach with any new commissions formed and stand by ready to assist the new Congress and the Executive branch,” Gene. L. Dodaro, United States Comptroller General and head of the GAO, said in a statement.

“As the investigative arm of Congress, GAO continues to examine how federal dollars are spent and provide lawmakers and agency heads with objective, non-partisan, professional, fact-based recommendations to help the government save money and work more efficiently,” Dodaro added.

During an interview with NBC News last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who could play a key role overseeing public health issues in the next Trump administration, said he intends to disband numerous health departments in the executive branch.

He singled out “the nutrition departments” at the Food and Drug Administration, saying they “have to go.”

Trump’s announcement Tuesday brings together two of Trump’s highest-profile surrogates from the tech industry, who have vastly different backgrounds.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is among the wealthiest people in the world and the owner of the social media platform X. Even though he is a newcomer to electoral politics, his super PAC spent more than $152 million to elect Trump and other Republicans this year.

SpaceX has $3.6 billion in contracts with federal agencies this year, according to government data. It’s not clear whether that spending is on the table for possible cuts.

Ramaswamy ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination against Trump and dropped out in January after he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses. He’s the founder of a biotech company, Roivant Sciences.

Trump didn’t immediately provide details about how the two men would work together or who might pay for the operations of the department if it operates outside the federal government.