Elon Musk plans to turn his newly appointed role of cutting through the US government bureaucracy into a game. Appointed to run the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, the Tesla CEO wants to make the experience transparent and interactive by asking for help from US taxpayers. This will include a virtual suggestion box as well as a ranking of some of the worst examples of federal waste.

“We will also have a ranking of the dumbest things your tax dollars are spent on,” Musk posted. “The entertainment value will be awesome.”

Late Tuesday, the Trump transition team announced it had tapped Musk to run DOGE, a newly created organization named after Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency. (DOGE is not, however, a real department, like the State Department, since only Congress has the authority to create new departments.)

Along with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk is tasked with cutting regulations and spending deemed excessive or wasteful, restructuring federal agencies, and last but not least, eliminating bureaucracy.

Musk said Americans are welcome to bombard him with suggestions about where he should swing the axe. “Any time the public thinks we’re cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, let us know,” he wrote, adding that “all actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.”

Realizing the Republican Party's Long-Term Dream

“Republican politicians have been dreaming about the goal of 'DOGE' for a very long time,” Trump wrote in a statement released by his campaign transition team.

In the fiscal year that ended September 30, the federal government spent $6.75 trillion, more than it collected in taxes and duties.

The rest, raised through the issuance of Treasury bonds whose interest rates depend on demand in the bond market, has contributed to a ballooning national debt that investors including hedge fund legend Paul Tudor Jones have likened to a ticking time bomb.

In a similar comparison, the President-elect likened DOGE to the creation of nuclear weapons: “It has the potential to be the ‘Manhattan Project’ of our time.”

Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy's work would be completed by July 4, 2026, as a gift to the American people on the 250th anniversary of the country's founding.

'DOGE' Will Soon Start Crowdsourcing Ideas

Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati native, said his work on the new task force is more important than his personal ambition to run for the Ohio Senate seat that will be vacated by Vice President-elect JD Vance.

In announcing his withdrawal from the race, Ramaswamy said he had begun making proposals before the Trump administration took office.

“DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing to highlight examples of government waste, fraud, and abuse,” he wrote. “Americans voted for strong government reform and they deserve to be involved in fixing it.”

However, there is an agency tasked with auditing the Government and preventing wasteful spending or fraud of taxpayers' money, the Government Accountability Office.

How the new DOGE task force coordinates its role with the GAO remains unclear, as does the question of what this might mean for Musk's other businesses.

The entrepreneur splits his time between his multiple responsibilities running Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and his latest artificial intelligence startup, xAI. He also owns the social media platform X, where he runs product development operations.

Neither Elon Musk nor the Trump campaign responded to requests for comment from Fortune.

Precious little control room

The $1.83 trillion deficit in the most recent annual federal budget, the third-highest on record, has economists and business leaders including Musk worried that the US government is on the brink of bankruptcy.

If Musk succeeds in cutting $2 trillion from the government's budget, he would effectively turn the United States from a deficit into a surplus. The last time Uncle Sam turned a profit was at the turn of the century, so that would be a huge feat even for someone as business-savvy as Musk.

But it remains unclear where these savings will come from because there is often little room to maneuver as long as the main driver – benefits – remains intact.

Typically, two-thirds of federal spending is mandatory, including Social Security and Medicare. A much smaller portion is classified as discretionary and is approved by Congress each year, with the largest line item going to defense. Finally, about one-tenth of the budget goes to paying down the national debt.