Soon-to-be President Donald Trump has tasked biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy and the world’s richest man Elon Musk with co-leading an entity they are calling the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. With this assignment, you have a perfect cocktail of corruption, a nascent federal advisory committee poised to violate open government rules, declared goals that are unattainable, and an underlying agenda that’s unpopular.
The super wealthy men have a two-part plan. Part one, gut federal government regulations. Part two, slash government spending. The ideas they are discussing would hamstring government agencies from protecting Americans against wrongdoing corporations, hurt regular people, and transfer massive amounts of wealth to the super rich class that Musk and Ramaswamy represent (not to mention the two men, themselves).
Take cutting regulations—Musk has called this push an “existential” issue, claiming that “humanity will never reach Mars” unless “we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations.” This perspective is one we should expect from a CEO who prioritizes profits, but not one that rings true for most Americans—the people government rules are intended to protect. We all depend on government regulations to defend our air and water from pollutants, protect our workers from unsafe workplaces, protect us from side effects of drugs that are intended to improve our health, defend children’s safety, keep our roads safe, and so much more.
When it comes to these types of essential regulations, Musk and Ramaswamy are private persons making recommendations. They have no special authority or magic dust. By law, the process of rescission—formally removing a rule from the books—follows the same rules as issuing a new rule. It can take a year or more, as agencies follow an official notice and comment process, solicit feedback, do cost-benefit analysis on removing the rules, and much more.
Beyond cutting rules we care about, Musk and Ramaswamy also say they want to cut $2 trillion in spending. Musk acknowledged during a town hall event before the election that the huge cuts he is looking for would bring “temporary hardship” to Main Street Americans. Finding a place to make these cuts is a challenge that is almost insurmountable considering the largest parts of the budget go to causes Trump has said he will protect, such as Medicare, Social Security, and the Pentagon. What is left are popular expenditures on things like education, Meals on Wheels, national parks, and much more. The backlash to these expenditures being labeled “cuttable,” will likely be great. The total amount of spending in these areas is also far less than Musk’s made-up $2 trillion figure.
Now to the next part of the unsavory cocktail, the government corruption issues inherent in having these two men helm this project.
The potential personal benefits for Musk from this position are vast. He leads several companies that are under federal scrutiny. In an October report, we found that at least three of Musk’s businesses are currently under investigation or facing scrutiny for alleged misconduct by at least nine federal agencies. In addition, Musk benefits from massive ongoing federal contracts. SpaceX is likely to accrue another $20 billion in federal business between now and 2028, (or at least another $5 billion to $6 billion annually).
Ramaswamy is a much lesser billionaire, but he too has broad financial interests affected by the government.
Putting Musk and Ramaswamy in a position to help influence how the government spends its money, even as they both stand to personally benefit, would leave a stink in anyone’s nose.
The final ingredient of the DOGE cocktail is the potential improper conduct of the entity itself. DOGE meets the textbook definition of a federal advisory committee, and as such, it should be governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA (or will be, once Trump takes office). This law is intended to ensure that advisory committees contain balanced representation (two billionaires does not constitute balance), and that federal open-records laws apply. Public Citizen has sent a letter to the Trump Transition making clear that DOGE will be an advisory committee once Trump is inaugurated and becomes president, and that it must abide by all the rules that come with that definition. This includes rigorous transparency and the requirement to represent diverse and balanced points of view, and will require DOGE to work very differently than how Musk has announced it will.
DOGE is a bad idea. It’s unpopular, irresponsible, and dangerous to slash critical, life-saving regulations and cut programs and policies we all care about and benefit from. It is also incredibly problematic that it is helmed by people who are trying to take shortcuts, are poised to use the project to enrich themselves at the expense of other people, and are skirting the open government regulations that will be applicable to it. It’s a cocktail no one ordered.
Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman are co-presidents of Public Citizen.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
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