WashingtonElon Musk‘s appointment within Donald Trump‘s new administration to head the “Department of Government Efficiency” is probably the least surprising of all. After spending half of the campaign saying that if he won he would charge Musk to reduce federal spending, the president-elect has kept his word and officially announced it on Wednesday. Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump in this year’s primaries and has become a staunch supporter of the tycoon, will be the other person tasked with rooting out “huge waste and fraud” in spending governmental The Republican defines it as “the Manhattan Project of our time”.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce excess regulation, eliminate unnecessary spending, and restructure federal agencies, essential to the Save America movement,” said the statement sent by the Trump team this Wednesday morning. The DOGE, in its English acronym, which also refers to a meme from the world of cryptocurrencies, was an idea that Musk himself suggested to Trump during the interview he gave him in September. Now it’s a reality that further demonstrates the billionaire’s influence over the president-elect.
Not many details are known yet about how the DOGE will work or how many employees it will have, but Trump does predict that it will end its work in July 2026. After that date, the Republican expects the agency to leave behind “a government smaller, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy”. During the Madison Square Garden rally, the South African billionaire said he would cut “at least two trillion” from annual spending. “This will create an earthquake in the system, and anyone involved in government waste – of which there are many – will notice it,” Musk said.
The organization will operate “from outside the Government and will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to promote large-scale structural reform,” according to Trump. The ability to regulate the federal budget and determine how much is spent rests with Congress, and there the Republican majority in the Senate will make the cuts proposed by Musk and Ramaswamy easier to implement. During the primary campaign, Ramaswamy promoted extreme cuts in the federal government, at one point proposing to cut the workforce by more than 75%.
With the appointment, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX will gain power over the regulatory agencies that have caused so many headaches for him. Musk’s companies have been the target of at least 20 investigations or reviews recently, including the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets. As if the conflict of interest wasn’t obvious enough, last year alone the SpaceX company signed nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies worth $3 billion.
Musk’s rise as Trump’s right-hand man has been meteoric. Shortly after Butler’s shooting in July, Musk quickly sided with the Republican, as if political violence was what drove him to support him. The reality is that in May the Wall Street Journal had already revealed exclusively that Trump wanted Musk as an adviser if he won the presidency and that they had already had an informal meeting in Palm Beach to discuss the issue. In his first term as president, however, Trump and Musk had clashed publicly, after the owner of electric car company Tesla quit an advisory council to the Republican over his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement.
A Secretary of Defense that worries the Pentagon
Trump has also announced who will be in charge of the Department of Defense under his presidency. Fox commentator and war veteran Pete Hegseth, 44, has been chosen. His appointment must be ratified by the Senate, where the Republicans have the majority.
“Pete is strong, smart and a true believer in America First policy. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice: our military will be great again, and America will never back down,” he said. Trump in the statement sent this Wednesday morning. Although perhaps most striking about the tycoon is that Hegseth also shares much of his view on America’s role in NATO and the current state of the US military.
Hegseth’s criticism of European allies is reminiscent of Trump’s on defense spending: “Maybe if NATO countries actually paid for their own defense … but they don’t. They just talk about the rules while dismantling their armies and call on the United States for help.”
The future Secretary of Defense has on several occasions been critical of the leaders of the Pentagon, whom he considers to have applied policies “woke“. In an interview with CNN just over a week ago, Hegseth argued that women “shouldn’t” have combat roles in the military.
For days, jitters have run rampant among senior Pentagon officials, who already feared the incoming Trump administration could order the firing of Joint Chiefs of Staff chief Gen. CQ Brown over differences. of vision, according to Politico. The appointment of Hegseth, who Brown accused of “promoting the radical positions of left-wing politicians”, is sure to fuel further unease.
