Elon Musk speaking at TED2017. Image: Marla Aufmuth/TED Conference/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The Tesla CEO was a prominent supporter of the US president-elect during his recent election campaign.
US president-elect Donald Trump has today (13 November) appointed Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, to a newly created US government position.
Musk, who is the owner X, SpaceX and Tesla, will be co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
In spite of the name, it appears this organisation will not actually be an official government agency. In a statement, Trump said the department will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” and will work with the White House to “drive large-scale government reform”.
The South African entrepreneur notably made a number of public appearances with Trump and also gave millions of dollars to support Trump’s presidential campaign. It is estimated that Elon Musk’s super political action committee spent around $200m to help elect Trump.
Musk commented on the recent appointment via a post on X, where he said: “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!”
He also said that the DOGE will have a leaderboard for “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars”.
“This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining”, Musk added.
Trump said the work of the DOGE would conclude by 4 July 2026, and said that a smaller and more efficient government would be “the perfect gift” to the US to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Ramaswamy also responded to the announcement of his appointment on his official X account, saying: “We will not go gently, @elonmusk”, alongside an American flag emoji.
At present, it is unknown how exactly the DOGE will operate.
In other news, Trump is working to prevent the application TikTok from getting banned in the US, according to The Washington Post. This follows his initial efforts to ban the Chinese platform during his first term in office.
Elon Musk speaking at TED2017. Image: Marla Aufmuth/TED Conference via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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