Trump likened the efficiency effort to the Manhattan Project, the U.S. undertaking to build the atomic bomb that helped end World War Two, while Musk promised transparency. “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency,” Musk said on X, inviting the public to provide tips.
“We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining,” Musk said.
Musk said at a Trump
rally at Madison Square Garden in October that the federal budget could be reduced by “at least” $2 trillion. Discretionary spending, including defense spending, is estimated to total $1.9 trillion out of $6.75 trillion in total federal outlays for fiscal 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that. We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook,” Musk said at the rally. The acronym of the new department – DOGE – also references the name of the cryptocy dogecoin that Musk promotes. In August Musk and Tesla
won the dismissal of a federal lawsuit accusing them of defrauding investors by hyping dogecoin and conducting insider trading, causing billions of dollars of losses. Dogecoin has more than doubled since Election Day, tracking a surge in cryptocy markets on expectations of a softer regulatory ride under a Trump administration. Shares in Tesla fell on Wall Street ahead of the announcement but are up about 30% since the election.
Ramaswamy is the founder of a pharmaceutical company who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump and then threw his support behind the former president after dropping out. In his 2021
bestseller “Woke, Inc.,” Ramaswamy decried decisions by some big companies to base business strategy around social justice and climate change concerns. Ramaswamy said the appointment means he is withdrawing from consideration for the pending U.S. Senate appointment in Ohio, where Governor Mike DeWine will appoint a replacement for JD Vance, who will become Trump’s vice president when they are inaugurated on Jan. 20.