Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy spent several hours Thursday exchanging ideas with lawmakers about President-elect Donald Trump’s DOGE project to destroy portions of the federal government.
According to politicians who attended a closed-door meeting at the Capitol, Musk informed the primarily Republican members that they would keep a “naughty and nice” list of those who support the budget-cutting plans and those who do not.
“We’re going to see a lot of change around here in Washington,” remarked House Speaker Mike Johnson as Musk breezed past and into the private meeting, carrying his small son on his shoulders.
Trump appointed the two business titans to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force charged with finding ways to fire federal employees, cut programs, and reduce federal regulations as part of his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that have historically met with public opposition when faced with cuts to trusted programs on which millions of Americans rely for jobs, health care, military security, and basic necessities.
But this time, Trump is filling his administration with battle-tested architects of broad initiatives, some of which are contained in Project 2025, to drastically downsize and reform the government. Musk and Ramaswamy have stated that they intend to collaborate with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, led by Trump’s choice Russ Vought, an architect of previous cuts.
“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the onslaught.”
Trump announced on Thursday that he will appoint David Sacks, a venture capitalist and former PayPal executive, as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Trump stated in a social media post that Sacks would “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.” Trump’s transition team did not specify whether Sacks would be a federal employee or a temporary government worker who would not be subject to the same ethics and disclosure laws.
Sacks went to Mar-a-Lago earlier Thursday, according to an investor who attended an event at Trump’s Florida resort. The long-time conservative was instrumental in introducing Vice President-elect JD Vance to funders and demonstrating his fundraising abilities. Sacks held a fundraiser for Trump and Vance at his San Francisco home.
Musk and Ramaswamy faced their first test when they sat on an auditorium stage in the Capitol basement, where House and Senate legislators, almost entirely Republicans, lined up at microphones to discuss suggestions for addressing the country’s fiscal deficits.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, mentioned the Department of Education as an appropriate location to slash. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., suggested looking at office space and how little of it is being used. Others mentioned the necessity for employees to return to their offices.
Johnson later declined to specify whether Medicare, Social Security, or other popular programs were off limits to changes, calling the initial meeting as a “brainstorming” session with more to follow.
“They said everything has to be looked at,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who, along with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, formed the DOGE caucus in the House, which includes more than 50 Republicans and two Democrats.
Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be taking it all in, with Musk taking notes at times, according to legislators – experiencing a day in the life of congressional leadership as the meeting continued, with politicians queuing up 20 deep for their turn to speak.
“It was exactly what I had hoped for: a question-and-answer session where members could come up and express their ideas, concerns, and ask questions,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who will lead a House Oversight subcommittee on DOGE in the next year.
To be sure, not all of Congress participated, since the majority of Democrats did not.
When New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi heard Musk indicate that he was willing to hear from Democrats, he hurried over to participate near the end of the session.
“Let’s do some things to try and make government more efficient — without hurting people,” Suozzi tweeted.
Musk and Ramaswamy left lawmakers with the notion that they would return for more, having frequent meetings and launching a podcast or another method of sharing information with Americans to assess popular support — or resistance — to the initiatives.
While neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have much public service experience, they do have track records in private industry — Musk’s companies have numerous government contracts — and an excitement for Trump’s vision, having campaigned with him in the last stretch of the election.
Musk, the world’s richest billionaire, invested millions of dollars into a voter turnout campaign to help the former president return to the White House. He is politically recognized for rebranding the popular social media site formerly known as Twitter as X, a platform welcomed by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters.
Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department or part of the government, which exempts Musk and Ramaswamy from the standard ethics and background checks necessary for federal employment. They stated that they will not be compensated for their work.
According to one good-government organization, DOGE, as a presidential advisory council, should be expected to follow customary principles such as transparency, equitable representation, and public engagement, as analogous advisory groups have done from the Reagan to the Obama administration.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act “is designed expressly for situations like this,” stated Public Citizen co-chairs Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman in a letter to the Trump transition team.
“If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable persons to make recommendations as grand as $2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure those recommendations come from a balanced and transparent process not rigged to benefit insiders.”
The nation’s $6 trillion federal budget typically runs a deficit, which this year was $1.8 trillion, a record high, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than 20 years ago.
Republicans often blame excessive spending for the deficit, whilst Democrats point to tax cuts passed by Republican presidents Trump and George W. Bush as the primary cause.
Last year’s receipts as a proportion of GDP were somewhat lower than the 50-year average, while outlays were 23.4% of GDP, compared to 21.1% during the same period.
Some of the largest gains in expenditure last year came from politically popular programs that lawmakers would be hesitant to dismantle. According to the Congressional Budget Office, spending on Social Security benefits climbed by 8%, Medicare outlays increased by 9%, defense spending increased by 7%, and veterans’ health care spending jumped by 14%.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said the meeting was significant because it was taking place, “that there’s honest dialogue between Congress and two, like, rock-star administration guys.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he would like Musk to testify before the House Armed Services Committee about the “bloated defense budget.”
“I’d like to see Elon’s recommendations for reduction. “Let him testify,” Khanna responded.
