Musk leads DOGE, Trump messes with the cabinet, can it get any crazier?

Musk sets up new government department, recruiting staff with ‘extremely high IQs’ who will work 80 hours a week.

Author: Flip

Editor: odette

Source: Guokr

In August this year, Musk and Trump connected for two hours on the X platform, discussing everything from international affairs to domestic politics. At the end of the conversation, Musk concluded, ‘Inflation originates from government overspending, we need a government efficiency committee to control expenditure.’ To which Trump responded, ‘You are best at layoffs, if you are willing to do this, I am very willing.’

After the conversation, Musk tweeted on X saying that he looks forward to serving the United States, “no payment, no title, no recognition”.

At the time, everyone thought it was a bit unrealistic, after all, these two have always been at odds, each saying their own thing. Unexpectedly, the first big news after Trump’s victory was fulfilling the promise to Musk, establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, abbreviated as DOGE.

Musk also made a logo for the new department he leads, the fewer the words, the greater the significance. | x.com

DOGE obviously borrowed the name of the dogecoin with Musk’s platform, but Trump soon issued an official announcement, proving that this playful name is serious.

Do you still remember the bloody storm caused by the surge in Dogecoin, quite ironic to call the government department by this name

“Great Elon Musk,” the announcement reads, "will join hands with Vivek Ramaswamy (Indian businessman, entrepreneur, and Republican) to co-lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, abbreviated as DOGE.

In this announcement, Trump also declared that the efforts to reduce government spending are as important as the modern-day Manhattan Project. The Office of Government Efficiency will work with the White House Office of Management and Budget to drive large-scale government structural reforms and complete the reforms by July 4th, 2026. ‘This is a gift to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,’ said Trump.

The announcement issued by the Trump-Pence administration

As soon as the news came out, the price of DOGE rose, it seems that speculating on concept stocks is the same in any country.

Currently, the DOGE department is actively recruiting talents on the Internet, requiring “super high IQ, working more than 80 hours per week”, and Musk himself will review the top 1% of applicants.

The next step for Musk’s political participation

Two things Musk may do after taking office are cutting US government spending and streamlining administrative agencies.

In October of this year, Musk publicly stated at a rally held at Madison Square Garden in New York that he intends to cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget. However, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office, of the $6.75 trillion in total US federal spending in fiscal year 2024, including discretionary spending including defense spending, is estimated to be $1.9 trillion.

In other words, according to the current US government spending situation, Musk intends to cut nearly as much money as all government discretionary spending.

Another thing he might do is lay off employees.

Currently, the US government has about 428 administrative agencies, and Musk believes that 99 are too many. On other occasions, Musk has repeatedly publicly called for the reduction of current administrative agencies. He called out to his fans, saying, ‘If you think there is something I should have cut but haven’t, please let me know directly.’ He also claimed that he would establish a ranking in the future to rank the most wasteful and foolish tax expenditures.

When Musk says he will lay off employees, he really will. In 2019, Musk quickly laid off 10% of the employees at Space X with an email, and many employees were unable to log into the work system immediately after seeing the email; After the acquisition of Twitter in 2022, Musk laid off 80% of the employees, significantly reducing the company’s size from 8,000 to 1,500; Earlier this year, he laid off 28,000 Tesla employees.

Will the US government after this face such layoffs, and what should the laid-off US civil servants do? Will the already low efficiency of the US government become even lower due to the shortage of manpower? These are all questions.

What Musk wants to do after taking office: send emails to every government official asking what you did this week

In addition to being a government efficiency official, Musk may also further use his close relationship with Trump to intervene in more American politics. For example, last Wednesday, after Trump’s victory, Musk also attended the first call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Can layoffs reduce expenses?

Although it looks beautiful, Musk’s ideas may not necessarily be feasible.

American political economist Francis Fukuyama published an open letter to Musk the day before yesterday, in which he mentioned, ‘It is generally believed that federal bureaucracies are bloated and overstaffed, but the reality is quite the opposite: there is actually a shortage of government personnel’.

Since 1969, the number of civil servants in the US government has barely increased, standing at about 2.3 million. This is because the US government has been streamlining its workforce. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees $1.4 trillion in spending, one-fifth of the entire federal budget, only has 6,400 full-time employees. Meanwhile, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, responsible for resettling millions of refugees, has only 150 staff members. If these personnel are reduced, there may be an increase in fraud and waste in the healthcare system and the refugee situation may spiral out of control. The economic losses caused by these side effects are difficult to accurately quantify.

In addition, some media also expressed that the fiscal issues of the United States should not be entrusted to three billionaires (referring to Musk, Trump, and Rama Swamy, who are all wealthy businessmen), as they can only represent the interests of the privileged class, which inherently nurtures corruption.

Some people say that Musk’s enthusiasm reminds them of the 1920s, when the previous Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, aspired to significantly reduce government spending. He averaged one Treasury staff member being cut every day and reduced the size of banknotes to save printing costs. However, later historians believe that his belt-tightening plan accelerated the arrival of the Great Depression in the United States in 1929.

Trump’s Cabinet

Eight years ago, when Trump was first elected President of the United States, even he did not expect to win, so he was not fully prepared. According to the Center for Presidential Transition, the new president will be responsible for appointing and transitioning approximately 4,000 government officials and staff, big and small. Because Trump didn’t know who to appoint for what position, many positions were directly appointed by the Republican Party.

But this time is different. Trump came prepared and had already prepared his cabinet picks.

As of now, the appointments announced by Trump are:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken a tough stance on China and has been blacklisted by China and banned from entering the country.

Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman charged with rape and sexual assault of a minor, is being investigated by the House of Representatives for misappropriation of campaign funds.

Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, a retired U.S. Army veteran and host of Fox News, was a major in the military before this.

Minister of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist.

Trump also said that he would further increase tariffs on China after taking office, forcing Nvidia to shift chip manufacturing to the United States and abolishing the executive orders issued by the Biden administration to restrict AI development. However, on the other hand, Trump has also rarely stated as a political figure that he will ‘never ban TikTok’, and his election may bring a glimmer of hope for the TikTok ban.