Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to visit Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with Republican lawmakers from both the House and Senate, focusing on strategies to reduce waste in the federal government. This comes shortly after the formation of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
As co-heads of the newly created agency, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, aim to collaborate with Congress to tackle government inefficiencies and curb misuse of taxpayer funds.
Through social media posts, podcasts, op-eds, books, and speeches, Musk and Ramaswamy have outlined their vision: a 75% reduction in the federal workforce, a $2 trillion cut in federal spending, and the elimination of entire agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Musk and Ramaswamy are also scheduled to attend the inaugural Senate DOGE Caucus meeting, chaired by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, lead a similar initiative in the House, with around three dozen members, including several House appropriators. On Tuesday, Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida became the first Democrat to join the group.
"If there are people with legitimate suggestions on how we can improve government efficiency, maybe bring technology to government, figure out where there's waste and fraud and save the American taxpayer dollars, we should do that," Moskowitz said on Morning Edition Thursday, according to Fox News. "And it shouldn't be a partisan issue."
In the last fiscal year, the government spent over $6.75 trillion, with more than $5.3 trillion allocated to politically sensitive and challenging-to-reduce areas such as Social Security, health care, defense, veterans' benefits, and interest on the national debt.
Last month, Trump described the DOGE as the "Manhattan Project of our time," drawing a parallel to J. Robert Oppenheimer's covert World War II initiative to develop the atomic bomb.
"Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DOGE for a very long time," Trump said.
