Musk posted on X: “Department of Government Efficiency. The merch will be (fire emojis).” Later he added: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”
Musk has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election.
The president-elect has often said he would give Musk a formal role overseeing a group akin to a blue-ribbon commission that would recommend ways to slash spending and make the federal government more efficient. Musk at one point suggested he could find more than $2 trillion in savings — nearly a third of total annual government spending.
Trump had made clear that Musk would likely not hold any kind of full-time position, given his other commitments.
“I don’t think I can get him full-time because he’s a little bit busy sending rockets up and all the things he does,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in September. “He said the waste in this country is crazy. And we’re going to get Elon Musk to be our cost cutter.”
Ramaswamy suspended his campaign in January and threw his support behind Trump.
Trump said in his statement the two will “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
First appeared on whyy.org