Elon Musk to lead US ‘DOGE’ department to cut bureaucracy which they claim will be ‘Manhattan Project of our time’

13 November 2024, 05:16 | Updated: 13 November 2024, 07:57

Incoming US president Donald Trump has confirmed Elon Musk will lead a team to cut down government waste when he takes office in January.

The tech billionaire is to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

The acronym DOGE is Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency and also a popular online meme.

The pair will reportedly 'pave the way' for the new administration to 'dismantle bureaucracy and restructure federal agencies.'

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Mr Trump said in a statement that Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House "advice and guidance" and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before". He added that the move would shock government systems.

It is not clear how the organisation will operate. It could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.

As the pair will be working outside of government, they will not face the same ethical limitations federal workers do.

DOGE has been given a deadline of the 4th of July 2026 to conclude its work.

Mr Musk posted on X: "Department of Government Efficiency. The merch will be (fire emojis)."

Later, he added: "Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!"

The union representing federal workers warned that if DOGE was given free reign to implement its desired changes it would "mean massive cuts" to multiple departments.

The Tesla boss heavily endorsed Trump during the Presidential campaign and spoke in his favour at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Musk has posted relentlessly about his support for Trump to his hundreds of millions of followers in the run-up to the election, claiming the future of civilisation was at stake at the polls.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss has appeared at several Trump rallies, as well as pumping millions of dollars into campaign groups supporting the Republican nominee, and funding controversial sweepstakes in swing states that required people to register to vote and sign a pro-Trump petition in order to be eligible.

Alongside thousands of pro-Trump messages, Musk's X account, and those of many of his own most ardent fans, have also promoted conspiracy theories and misinformation around the key election issues, as well as the Democratic Party and its candidates, often receiving millions of views.

The approach to Trump from social media, and specifically X, has been in stark contrast to the 2020 election, when his posts were regularly fact-checked or flagged as misinformation before and after the election, before ultimately being banned from Twitter - as it was then - and other sites for what they said were rule breaches around inciting the violence at the US Capitol on January 6.

That ban would remain in place on Twitter until Musk bought the platform two years later.

Musk's management of X has been highly controversial, ever since he tool control of the platform in late 2022.

Previously, Trump named Susie Wiles, the defacto manager of his victorious campaign, as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the influential role.

Ms Wiles is a longtime Florida-based Republican strategist who ran Mr Trump's campaigns in the state in 2016 and 2020, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' successful bid for office in 2018.

Mr Trump, who promised in 2016 to hire "only the best people" has since repeatedly said that he believes the biggest mistake of his first term was hiring the wrong people.