U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Via Reuters
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will visit Capitol Hill to discuss government reform with Republican congressional leaders Dec. 5, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced Wednesday.
Johnson said the entrepreneurs will “discuss major reform ideas to achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings” with GOP lawmakers.
President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk and Ramaswamy co-chairs of a new outside advisory commission they have dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While details about the panel are still emerging, it appears that it would serve mainly to consult the White House Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president’s annual budget request to Congress.
Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out a sweeping set of goals for the project, including massive cuts to the federal workforce and the closure of numerous federal agencies and regulators.
They also want to eliminate “expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress,” they wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. They would also seek to cut federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, several international organization and the women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood.
On Wednesday, Musk also suggested that the White House should “delete” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency.
The lion’s share of these proposals would require congressional approval, however, because the House controls the appropriation of federal funds to agencies.
Next week’s planned meeting is the latest indication that Republican leaders in Congress are taking Musk and Ramaswamy seriously.
Yet even the best efforts of Republican leaders in Congress may not be enough to enact many of these ideas.
With the results of a few House races still outstanding as of Wednesday, Johnson is nonetheless on track to preside over one of the narrowest majorities, of either party, in several decades.
Given how widely dispersed the federal workforce is across the country’s 435 congressional districts, the prospect of putting any one district’s federal employees out of work would likely face opposition from that district’s representatives in Congress.
Spokespeople for Johnson and Musk did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Musk is the world’s wealthiest person, and head of SpaceX, Tesla and the social media platform X. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, is a former Republican candidate for president.