Trump taps Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead Department of Government Efficiency
US President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has selected tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new "Department of Government Efficiency" in his second administration.
“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, News.Az reports, citing CNN.The announcement of Ramaswamy and particularly Musk, who leads companies with existing, lucrative government contracts, raises immediate questions about potential conflicts of interest. It is not immediately clear how the department – which Trump said would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” – would operate, and whether a Congress even fully controlled by Republicans would have the appetite to approve such a massive overhaul of government spending and operations.
Trump had proposed the creation of a government efficiency commission as part of a slate of new economic plans that he unveiled in early September. At the time, he said Musk had agreed to lead it if he were to secure a return to the White House.
Trump’s statement Tuesday night quoted Musk as saying that “this will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!”
Ramaswamy separately responded on X with a slogan he often used during his presidential campaign to call for the elimination of federal agencies, writing: “SHUT IT DOWN.”
On the campaign trail, Trump pointed to his proposed government efficiency commission as a way to reduce government spending. “As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” he said in September. “This will save trillions of dollars.”
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