Trump ‘efficiency’ tsar Elon Musk outlines plans for mass US cuts

Elon Musk outlined plans Wednesday for his new role as “efficiency” tsar – signalling an assault on US federal spending and staffing that would be backed by President-elect Donald Trump’s executive powers and a conservative Supreme Court.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, the world’s richest man said he was taking aim at hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending – including funding for public broadcasting and international aid – as well as at bureaucracy that represents, according to him, an “existential threat” to US democracy.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who also owns the X social media platform, said that he and Vivek Ramaswamy, a fellow businessman and Trump loyalist, would work to slash federal regulations and make major administrative changes.

“We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in their most detailed remarks since Trump named them heads of a new so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

They said DOGE – expected to function more as an advisory group rather than a formal department – will prepare a list of regulations which Trump could invalidate unilaterally.