Elon Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy took its cutting-edge government roadshow to Capitol Hill on Thursday, meeting with lawmakers and brainstorming ideas to address so-called federal waste.
Two businessmen were assigned tasks by the President-elect Donald Trump by finding new ways to radically dismantle the federal bureaucracy, allegedly told a group of most Republicans that they were compiling “a nice and naughty list” of lawmakers who did and did not accept their new pledge. They also listened and took notes as a series of sympathetic lawmakers offered proposals for Musk and Ramaswamy’s new “Department of Government Effectiveness,” from scrutinizing the Department of Education to ending work from remote for federal employees.
“We will see many changes in Washington,” House Speaker said. Mike Johnson told ABC, in what could turn out to be the understatement of the century. DOGE, a nongovernmental think tank, has promised to develop a plan to cut up to $2 trillion from the national budget by laying off workers, cutting programs and rolling back regulations in partnership with the US. partner of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Some of the duo’s early antics attracted public attention. On Thursday, just before their DC session, Ramaswamy told CNN that DOGE will seek to reclaim a $6.6 billion loan the Department of Energy granted to electric vehicle startup Rivian — a Tesla competitor that Musk owns. Musk has also used his new position to fight his rivals, including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. After Altman congratulated Trump’s new “AI and cryptocurrency czar.” David Sacks on Thursday morning X, Musk insert with a laughing-crying emoji, which one user X described as “low-key bullying.” As for Bezos, Musk in November posted that the Amazon founder encouraged acquaintances to sell SpaceX and Tesla shares, then laughing emoji when Bezos denied it.
musk standing benefited a lot from his role in the Trump administration, given the billions of dollars of business his companies do with the federal government. That may help explain why the tech billionaire has invested a total of nearly $260 billion in Trump’s reelection campaign. New financial disclosure released on Thursday shows that not only did Musk donate $239 million to his controversial pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC, but he was also the sole supporter of a secret group ran ads likened Trump’s views on abortion to those of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Those misleading ads angered Ginsberg’s family and helped soften Trump’s anti-abortion stance.
In light of these entanglements, a number of civic and good government advocacy groups have called on Trump’s transition team to place roadblocks around the work of Musk and Ramaswamy. In late November, the progressive think tank Public Citizen wrote a letter called on Trump to require DOGE to hold open, recorded meetings and recruit “fairly balanced” members. “If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable people to recommend $2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure that these That recommendation comes from a balanced and transparent process, not intended to benefit insiders.” So far, neither DOGE nor Trump’s transition team has publicly signaled that such concerns trouble them.
