Call them back to office, they'll quit: Musk-Vivek's bold plan

Tesla owner billionaire Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in an op-ed provided an insight into their blueprint for an unprecedented government reform that includes mass federal job cuts and massive expense reduction.

IMAGE: US President-elect Donald Trump walks with Elon Musk in Brownsville, Texas, on November 19, 2024. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Pool via Reuters

Following his stunning electoral victory, President-elect Donald Trump entrusted Musk, 53, and Ramaswamy, 39, with government reform by appointing them to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The two confidants of Trump wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that they will serve as outside volunteers, assisting the Trump transition team in identifying and hiring a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America.

This team will work closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget in the new administration.

'The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings,' they wrote.

'We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the US Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President (Joe) Biden's tenure,' they added.

Setting a deadline of July 4, 2026, Musk and Ramaswamy said DOGE will present this list of regulations to Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the US economy, they argued.

'When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorised by Congress,' they said.

Observing that a drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy, Musk and Ramaswamy said DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.

Musk and Ramaswamy said that they would require federal employees to come to the office five days a week.

'Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,' they two asserted.

Noting that they are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers, the two said DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorised by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organisations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

'With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail,' Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.