What we know about Musk's cost-cutting mission

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss their newly-announced advisory team that the two billionaires say will cut regulations, spending, and headcounts within the federal government.

The Department of Government Efficiency, or “Doge” - seemingly a winking reference to Musk’s cryptocurrency of choice, dogecoin - was first announced by Donald Trump last month.

“It will become, potentially, 'The Manhattan Project' of our time,” the president-elect wrote on his social media platform, referring to a top-secret World War Two programme to develop nuclear weapons. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time.”

But despite Trump’s enthusiasm, much remains unclear about Doge and how it will function. As Musk and Ramaswamy meet with lawmakers, here’s a look at what we know about their nascent agency.

Though Doge has the clear support of Trump, and has the word “department” in its name, it is not an official government department - the type of body that has to be established through an act of Congress and typically employs thousands of staff.

Instead, it seems Doge will operate as an advisory body, run by two of Trump’s closest allies and with a direct line to the White House.

In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal last month, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would “serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees”.

The pair will assist the Trump transition team in recruiting the Doge team, they said, who will provide guidance to the White House on spending cuts, and compile a list of regulations they believe are outside agencies’ legal authority.

“DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission,” they wrote.

The specifics do not seem nailed down, but the overall picture is clear - Doge’s leaders want major government reform, by way of major cuts.

The federal bureaucracy “represents an existential threat to our republic,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in the Journal. “Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.”

Musk, the world’s richest person, has said he can find more than $2tn in savings - around a third of annual federal government spending.

And the two have said they will slash federal regulations, oversee mass layoffs and shut down some agencies entirely.

Ramaswamy, a financier who ran for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year, vowed during his campaign to shutter the Education Department, the FBI, and the IRS - promises he has repeated in recent weeks.

Speaking at a gala held at Mar-a-Lago last month, Ramasamy thanked Trump “for making sure that Elon Musk and I are in a position to start the mass deportations of millions of unelected federal bureaucrats out of the DC bureaucracy".

"And I don't know if you've got to know Elon yet, but he doesn't bring a chisel, he brings a chainsaw, and we're going to be taking it to that bureaucracy," Ramaswamy said. "It's going to be a lot of fun."

Musk has solicited employees on X, formerly Twitter, the social media platform he owns.

Doge-hopefuls have been asked to send their resumes directly to the newly-created Doge account on X. Applicants should expect 80+ hour workweeks, according to a post from Doge, devoted to “unglamorous cost cutting”. And, according to Musk, all that work at Doge will not be rewarded with a salary.

“This will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero,” he wrote on X.

Only the "top 1% of applicants" will be reviewed by Musk and Ramaswamy, the DOGE account said, though it did not specify how applicants will be ranked.

Even before it’s really up and running, Doge’s expiration has been set - 4 July, 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,” Trump said when announcing the new body.

Some Trump allies hope Doge will mirror the Grace Commission, a private-sector commission established by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 to reform the federal bureaucracy and control spending.

During its two-year tenure, the Grace Commission submitted more than 2,500 recommendations to the White House and Congress. Most were never implemented, however.