On Nov. 12, President-elect, Donald Trump, announced that he has appointed tech mogul Elon Musk and former presidential candidate and ally Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the soon to be established “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).
In a statement on Tuesday Trump wrote, “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
The new department will not be a federal agency but instead will provide advice and guidance “outside of government” and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to “drive structural government reform,” Trump wrote, adding that he looks forward to “Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans.”
Shortly after the announcement, a new government account emerged on Musk’s X, @DOGE, with the bio reading, “The people voted for major reform.”
The account’s first tweet was a repost of Trump announcing the new department and its leaders followed by a post that reads, “Working overtime to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!”
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‘Maximum transparency’
Musk posted on X several times concerning his appointment, with one post promising, “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!”
Musk also promised there would be a “leaderboard” that would track government spending.
“We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining,” Musk said.
Musk is not expected to become a government employee, otherwise he would have to divest himself from the six companies he currently oversees, including X, Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk’s appointment was expected. In September, at the Economic Club of New York, Trump said he would be appointing Musk to lead a task force to conduct, “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.”
Following the comment, Musk posted to X, “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises.”
Currently, “DOGE” is the number one trending topic on X with over 741,000 posts.
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‘Transgender monkey research’
Dillion Loomis, an X user with over 42,000 followers posted that he believed the new department is both an “incredible” and “crucial” development for America and listed a number of instances where he alleges wasteful government spending has occured.
“The CBO revealed at least 1,264 federal programs and bureaus have expired authorization, but they still received $516B in funding for FY2024,” Loomis posted.
He also wrote that the Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government “wastes $247B in taxpayer money” each and every year.
“Department of Agriculture employees misused government issued credit cards spending millions on personal purchases like concert tickets, tattoos, lingerie and car payments,” he said.
Among the list of instances of wasteful spending, Loomis cited $33.2M spent on “transgender monkey research,” $2.7M spent to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, and over $200M siphoned to wealthy musicians including, Post Malone, Chris Brown and Lil Wayne “through the Covid Paycheck Protection Program.”
“The importance of the Department of Government Efficiency cannot be overstated,” he insisted.
