Trump taps Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead 'DOGE'; 329 US agencies under threat?

In a bid to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and reduce regulatory burdens, US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the appointment of tech billionaire Elon Musk and India American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump has tasked them with spearheading an ambitious agenda to reduce government waste, cut spending, and eliminate redundant agencies, likening the initiative to a modern-day “Manhattan Project.”

Calling Tesla CEO “the Great Elon Musk” and Ramaswamy an “American Patriot”, the Republican leader said the “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.”

The US President-elect added that ‘DOGE’ will provide “advice and guidance from outside” of the 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.”

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in a joint statement.

Ramaswamy posted on X: “DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse. Americans voted for drastic government reform & they deserve to be part of fixing it.”

What Elon Musk plans to do under DOGE

In a recent conversation with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson, Musk explained the importance of creating the Department of Government Efficiency: "There are around 428 federal agencies. There's so many that people have never even heard of. I think we should be able to get away with 99 agencies.”

On Wednesday, Musk added, “99 Federal agencies is more than enough.”

This could mean that as many as 329 federal agencies may face dissolution under the incoming Trump administration.

Musk asserted that reducing federal agencies wasn’t a “threat to democracy,” as his critics have suggested, but rather a “threat to bureaucracy.”

The appointment of Musk and Ramaswamy has already prompted scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest, given Musk’s extensive federal contracts.