President-elect Donald Trump has officially tapped Elon Musk to ‘dismantle’ the $6.5 trillion bloated US bureaucracy by spearheading the newly created ‘Department of Government Efficiency.’
Trump made the bombshell announcement Tuesday night saying Musk will co-lead the ‘Manhattan Project of our time’ with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
‘This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!’ Musk said in a statement.
The Manhattan Project was the famed research project directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer that resulted in the development of the first nuclear weapons, led by the atom bombs President Harry Truman dropped on Japan‘s Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring WWII to an end.
Republicans have long complained about government over-spending and Trump touted that DOGE will accomplish its goals by July 4, 2026.
Trump pledged that the pair would help him ‘dismantle’ government bureaucracy and ‘slash excess regulations, cut wasteful spending, and restructure Federal Agencies.’
Trump said the immense project will ‘drive out the massive waste and fraud’ and would be completed by July 4, 2026.
‘A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,’ Trump said in the statement. ‘I am confident they will succeed!’
Trump emphasized that the pair ‘will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government’ and ‘drive large scale reform’ by creating an ‘entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.’
Musk and Ramaswamy have become some of Trump’s top allies in the tech bro community. DOGE itself is a play on the cryptocurrency Musk sent into the stratosphere by posting about it on Twitter (before he purchased and renamed it).
Musk officially endorsed Trump on the heels of the July 13 assassination attempt on the Republican at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
The SpaceX, X and Tesla head joined Trump on the campaign trail on October 5 when the now president-elect returned to the Butler venue – memorably jumping around onstage.
He put his money where his mouth was – offering a $1 million award each day to registered voters in battleground states.
Musk was with Trump and his family members at their election night shindig at Mar-a-Lago and has since been seen in meetings with the president-elect as he figures out who’s in his Cabinet.
Ramaswamy is a Yale Law-educated entrepreneur who started Roivant Sciences Ltd. a decade ago, which uses technology to aid drug development and other healthcare needs.
He wrote a popular book on the right: Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.
Ramaswamy started out the 2024 election cycle by running for president himself – though stayed complimentary of the ex-president.
Unlike candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Rep. Will Hurd, who were decidedly anti-Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, Ramaswamy touted the 78-year-old’s accomplishments in office.
When Trump appeared to be the runaway favorite ahead of the early primaries, Ramaswamy never turned on the former president, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley, allowing him to have a comfortable place to land in the Trump 2.0 White House.
Ramaswamy came in fourth place in the Iowa caucuses, suspending his campaign immediately afterward and endorsing Trump.
Both Musk and Ramaswamy are billionaires – but Musk’s net worth is estimated to be 304 billion and Ramaswamy is worth only one billion dollars.
‘Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time,’ Trump said. ‘To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.’
Musk responded to the news by posting to X: ‘The merch will be’ and then typed out three fire emojis.
Musk’s selection came amid a flurry of other picks from the President elect as he began to set out his inner circle of loyal allies.
Trump picked his campaign manager Susie Wiles as the first female chief of staff in White House history.
Behind-the-scenes Wiles, nicknamed the ‘Ice Baby,’ orchestrated one of the greatest political comebacks in modern politics and will bring her no-nonsense attitude as a political operative to the West Wing.
Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also been brought in by Trump as Border Czar, while Mike Waltz has been asked to be White House National Security Advisor.
Florida senator Marco Rubio has gone from being denigrated by Trump as ‘Little Marco,’ a heated campaign rival, to perhaps the most coveted of all Cabinet posts as Secretary of State.
Rubio, who was elected to the Senate in 2010, is considered a foreign policy hawk who has taken hard lines on China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, and will lead Trump’s prowess on the world stage as his Secretary of State.
He currently serves as the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was considered to be on Trump’s shortlist for vice president earlier this year.
Finally, Kristi Noem has been selected to serve as Donald Trump’s head of Homeland Security.
In the top Cabinet role, the staunch Trump loyalist – whose vice presidential hopes were dashed when she admitted to shooting her puppy – will implement Trump’s promises to clean up the mess at the southern border and deport millions of illegal migrants.
