Elon Musk leads Donald Trump's new 'cost-cutting' government department - with Vivek Ramaswany

Elon Musk has secured his dream job under the Republican's incoming administration and will head up the Department of Government Efficiency (yes, that’s Doge for short) – a department so committed to tackling “government waste” that Musk will lead it alongside failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

The news - which many people definitely saw coming, given how much the Twitter/X owner has cosied up to Donald Trump during the US presidential election – was announced on Monday, and is one of the convicted felon’s latest government appointments, alongside making Fox News host Pete Hegseth defence secretary (we wish we were joking).

In a statement on Monday, president-elect Donald Trump said: “I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”).

“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 – Essential to the 'Save America' Movement.”

He also went on to describe the new department as “potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project' of our time”.

The Manhattan Project, of course, being the initiative set up by Allied Forces in the Second World War to research producing the first-ever nuclear weapon.

Doge, meanwhile, will only be going nuclear in the sense that it will decimate government agencies and regulations.

Fun.

Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, shared Trump’s statement and commented: “We will not go gently, @elonmusk”.

He also went on to write that Doge will “soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud and abuse”, adding Americans “deserve to be a part of fixing it”.

While Musk has said: “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.”

Many Twitter/X users were quick to note that having two people leading work on government efficiency doesn’t sound all that efficient:

Others, meanwhile, have pointed out the obvious conflict of interest that comes from appointing government contractors to government positions:

Trump has said Musk and Ramaswamy’s work at Doge will wrap up “no later than July 4, 2026”.

“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” he added.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.