Trump vows to 'dismantle federal bureaucracy' and 'restructure' agencies with new, Musk-led commission

President-elect Trump is vowing to restructure federal agencies and slash bureaucracy as part of a new entity led by billionaire executive Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Trump on Tuesday designated the enterprise the Department of Government Efficiency, though it will not be a federal department nor will it function inside of government. Instead, Trump said, it will “provide advice and guidance” from outside the executive branch and work closely with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to propose cuts. 

“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—essential to the ‘Save America’ movement,” Trump said. 

Musk, who served as a top Trump surrogate and donated tens of millions of dollars in support of his candidacy, originally floated the idea. The owner of Tesla, SpaceX and several other businesses maintains contracts worth billions of dollars with the federal government and has been subject to investigations from an array of agencies. 

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people," Musk said.

As a presidential candidate in 2023, Ramaswamy proposed “large-scale, mass layoffs” that would eventually lead to eliminating 75% of the federal workforce. Ramaswamy has called Trump’s controversial Schedule F proposal to unwind the merit-based civil service for an untold number of federal jobs "incremental reform,” whereas he was proposing “a revolution.” 

“These rules are designed to protect those employees from individual politicized retribution,” Ramaswamy said last year. “Like it or not, that is what the civil service rules say. But they do not apply to reductions in force—large-scale, mass layoffs—and large-scale, mass layoffs are absolutely what we will bring to the D.C. bureaucracy.”

Experts in civil service law have cast doubt that any administration could see through such a plan, but Ramaswamy suggested he would ultimately win before a friendly Supreme Court. 

Trump said Republicans have long dreamed of accomplishing his new commission’s goals and said it could be the “Manhattan Project of our time.” He promised their work would conclude by July 4, 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

“I look 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,” Trump said. 

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and watchdog group, condemned the pledge to slash regulations that "protect our air, water, workers, children's safety and so much more," as well Musk's selection. 

“Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new ‘czar’ position," said Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen's co-president. "This is the ultimate corporate corruption."

In his first term, Trump spearheaded a government reorganization initiative that led to dozens of agency restructuring proposals. Most of those ideas were either abandoned or never taken up, however. Overall, Trump oversaw a small growth in the federal workforce during his presidency, though most agencies did shed workers. His budget proposals to dramatically slash domestic spending and eliminate some small agencies were largely ignored by Congress. 

This time around, his main, specific proposal to cut federal spending is to eliminate the Education Department. 

Creating a commission to trim wasteful federal spending is not a new idea; both former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton established similar task forces. Government Executive recently examined those efforts to determine the ways those succeeded and where Trump’s new iteration is likely to fall short.