Musk and Ramaswamy sending agents across US government to seek cuts
Share:
So-called department of government efficiency charged by Trump to help effect radical government shake-up. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have already dispatched emissaries across the US government ahead of their mission to slash public spending as joint heads of Doge (the department of government efficiency), a non-governmental body body ordered by Donald Trump to help realize his goal of a radical government shake-up.
The two tech billionaires have already sent aides to more than a dozen federal agencies as they look to identify possible cuts, according to the Washington Post. The agencies include the treasury department, the Internal Revenue Service and the Departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services.
Hiring for Doge is already under way, the Post reports, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building enterprise, in Washington DC. The eventual hiring goal is 100 workers by the time of Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.
Doge will not have the status of an official government agency, despite its lofty goals, and the pair have reportedly been encountering suspicion and resistance among career workers at government departments – partly fuelled by critical comments they have previously made about the civil service.
Some are said to regard the men as naive and arrogant about the complexities of reducing public spending and regulatory red tape, according to the Post. While Musk has previously set a target of $2tn in spending cuts, he has recently acknowledged that this figure might be unattainable.