President-elect Donald Trump has nominated billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"I am pleased to announce that Elon Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)," President Donald Trump said in a press release on November 12.
President-elect Donald Trump said billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will pave the way for the new administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, cut redundant regulations, cut wasteful spending and restructure federal agencies.
Musk and Ramaswamy, two prominent private-sector backers of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during his bid to return to the White House, added that the two businessmen’s jobs will end on July 4, 2026.
Immediately after President Trump announced the appointment, billionaire Elon Musk shared on social network X: "Threatening democracy? No, threatening the bureaucracy!".
For his part, businessman Ramaswamy declared: "We will not give up easily."
The other head of the Department of Government Efficiency is biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who quickly became a strong ally of Mr Trump after losing the Republican primary this year.
Earlier, during Mr. Trump's election campaign this year, billionaire Elon Musk said he would take a job in the administration as the head of DOGE.
Elon Musk also asserted that he could quickly cut $2 trillion in government spending if Republican candidate Donald Trump wins.
Musk has never worked in government before. However, his companies have signed contracts with the US government over the years, including contracts related to space, military and intelligence projects.
Billionaire Elon Musk is the most prominent supporter of President-elect Trump's campaign this year. He has spent more than $130 million on the super PAC America PAC, making the group a key part of President Trump's effort to retake the White House.
In the last few weeks before the election, he also made headlines when he and America PAC awarded $1 million to voters in battleground states.
"One of the best bets Musk ever made was supporting Trump. Musk was a big beneficiary of that," Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Reuters.
Theo Bloomberg, Reuters, AP
