Finance
US President-elect Donald Trump has announced the appointment of two maverick entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to oversee the new Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), which would be tasked with significantly transforming government while reducing waste.
Trump announced the nominations on Truth Social on Tuesday night, claiming that DoGE “will become, potentially, the ‘Manhattan Project’ of our time” – a reference to the US effort during globe War II to create atomic bombs in record time and drastically alter the globe.
Musk said, “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!”
He wrote on X: “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining (with a smiley emoji).”
Ramaswamy posted his reaction on X, “We will not go gently, @elonmusk.”
The structure of the department and its leadership is vague because Trump said, “The Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency.”
Since it is a new department, it is not clear if the leaders would be in the Cabinet, have to be confirmed by the Senate, and what their titles would be.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said.
About its role, he 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.”
During the campaign, Musk said that he could reduce the $6.5 trillion federal budget by $2 trillion.
In order to increase turnout in the state where he won, Musk organized a parallel campaign for Trump in Pennsylvania alongside Ramaswamy.
The world’s richest person, Musk heads the electric car company, Tesla, and the rocket company Space X, and owns X, which was known as Twitter before he bought it.
He is an immigrant from South Africa.
Ramaswamy is a multimillionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur with Indian parents.
He endorsed Trump instead of running against him for the Republican presidential nomination.
There are concerns over conflicts of interest, particularly in the case of Musk, whose SpaceX has federal contracts, even if it is reasonable to assume that they will provide their business experience to the government.
Additionally, he runs a sizable business in China, where he manufactures, markets, and exports Tesla automobiles.
Source: IANS
