President-elect Donald Trump promised to create a bold new “government commission” tasked with slashing federal inefficiency led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. However, the project he unveiled on Tuesday was markedly more modest: Musk, Trump said, will co-chair a temporary outside advisory group with a corny acronym and limited White House function.
If the decision came as a surprise or disappointment to Musk, he isn’t letting on. “This will send shockwaves through the system and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said, according to the statement. The way Musk plans to send those shock waves is far from clear. Instead of creating a government commission or new cabinet position—which would have exposed Musk to legislative scrutiny and all types of conflict-of-interest rules—Trump is standing up a 16-month advisory initiative, dubbed the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. Musk will also share leadership duties with Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur and one-time Trump challenger. Neither man will be employed by the federal government, Trump’s statement suggested, which means their influence will likely only extend to advising the Office of Management and Budget. The whole project will also wind down on July 4, 2026—just 16 months after Trump’s inauguration.
None of this means that Trump won’t succeed in wreaking havoc on the federal bureaucracy, which Musk has said he can cut by $2 trillion. But it’s a far cry from Trump’s initially expected hopes to install Musk as his “secretary of cost-cutting” or something similarly grand. And even if the OMB takes up Musk’s recommendations, federal spending plans must still pass Congress—where lawmakers are likely to balk at bone-deep cuts and where Republicans’ control of the House looks like it will be much smaller than initially expected.
The arrangement probably works well for Musk and Ramaswamy, who now get official-sounding titles without adhering to the full suite of pesky ethics rules that apply to federal workers. (Notably, DOGE may still be subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which sets some ethics and accountability guidelines for advisory groups.) In early September, Musk posted to X that he would serve in the Trump administration without pay, title, or recognition—a gesture you could interpret as altruism or a desire to skirt standard procedure. Trump has also hinted that Musk’s business entanglements might limit his role in the administration: “I’d put him in the Cabinet, absolutely,” Trump said in August, “but I don’t know how he could do that with all the things he’s got going.”
Cabinet position or no, Musk has become a fixture in Trump’s orbit this past week, zipping around Mar-a-Lago in a golf cart and joining the president-elect for high-level meetings. On Wednesday, Politico reported that some members of Trump’s inner circle have started to tire of the billionaire. “Elon is getting a little big for his britches,” one reportedly said.
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