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President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, a megadonor to the Republican’s campaign, and a beneficiary of government contracts — will co-lead a not-yet-created department tasked with gutting federal regulations and slashing spending.
Musk, who leads several companies that are under federal scrutiny, will head the so-called Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire.
“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 declared in a statement, without explaining the funding structure of the commission or how it would achieve those sweeping objectives. Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control come January, has authority over federal spending.
Trump said the commission “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 presidential race — into which Musk pumped more than $100 million to boost Trump — the Tesla CEO claimed a government efficiency commission would seek out $2 trillion in spending to eliminate. That sum, as The Washington Post observed, far exceeds the combined budgets of the Pentagon and the Departments of Education and Homeland Security.
Musk acknowledged during a virtual town hall event in late October that the massive cuts he hopes to enact would bring “temporary hardship” to ordinary Americans.
He has also cast his push to gut federal regulations as an “existential” issue, claiming that “humanity will never reach Mars” unless “we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations.”
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in the Trump team’s statement announcing the commission.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said it is “laughable” to put “the ultimate corporate tycoon” in charge of a commission on government spending and regulations.
“The purpose of government regulations is to protect the American people,” said Gilbert. “We all depend on these regulations to protect our air, water, workers, children’s safety, and so much more. ‘Cutting red tape’ is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests. Our problem is corporate capture of so much of our public policy, not this lie that corporations are held back by too many rules.”
“Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new ‘czar’ position,” Gilbert added. “This is the ultimate corporate corruption. If anyone had any doubts whether the Trump government aims to serve regular people or the billionaires, they should now be resolved.”
In a report published in October, Public Citizen found that “at least three of Musk’s businesses are currently under scrutiny for alleged misconduct by at least nine federal agencies.”
Since endorsing Trump over the summer, Musk has exerted significant influence over the Republican leader’s political operations, impacting his choice of running mate and injecting his views on candidates for key posts in the incoming administration. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Musk “has sat in on nearly every job interview with the Trump team” and is “trying to install his Silicon Valley friends in plum positions in the next administration.”
Musk, whose wealth has surged by tens of billions of dollars since Trump’s victory in last week’s election, has also relentlessly boosted the president-elect on X, the social media platform he purchased in 2022 and transformed into a right-wing disinformation machine.
“Get ready this January for chaos, revenge, greed, rampant abuses of power, and the unbridled control of corrupt plutocrats and oligarchs,” legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader warned over the weekend. “With Elon Musk in the lead.”
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