Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Tesla owner Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aimed at improving governance and curbing wastetul expenditures in bloated agencies. Trump has given them a deadline of July 4, 2026, to carry out the task without spelling out how it is to be done.
“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,” Trump said in a statement. “l am confident they will succeed!”
First Indian American To Be Inducted By Trump In His Administration
Ramaswamy, 37, is the first Indian American to have been inducted by Trump into his administration. His parents migrated to the US from Kerala and worked at a General Electric plant in Ohio. Ramaswarny, a 39-year-old political greenhorn, had challenged Trump for the Republican nomination before dropping out and becoming a fervent Trump cheerleader.
The statement by Trump did not address how Musk in particular would handle this task, without creating conflicts of interest, given that SpaceX has secured more than $10 billion worth of federal contracts over the last decade. Musk, who was one of Trump's biggest campaign contributors, said before the election that he would help the president-elect cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But he did not explain in any detail how that would be accomplished or what parts of the government would face the axe.
“This will send shockwaves through the system. and anyone involved in Government waste, which isa lot of people!” Musk said in the statement. The name of the new department — DOGE — appeared to be a takeOff on another one of Musk’s many Investments: the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which the billionaire regularly promotes to others.
