• Elon Musk said on Wednesday that saving $2 trillion would be a "best-case outcome" for DOGE.
• Musk said DOGE had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion, which would still be an "epic outcome."
• The Tesla chief had previously suggested his commission would save at least $2 trillion.

Elon Musk cast doubt on his previous promise that Donald Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" would save the government $2 trillion.

"I think we'll try for $2 trillion. I think that's, like, the best-case outcome," Musk told the political strategist Mark Penn during a Wednesday-evening chat on X.

In October, Musk argued that DOGE would save the government at least $2 trillion. Some federal budget experts questioned the possibility of making such significant cuts, especially given that Trump has promised not to touch programs like Social Security and Medicare.

"But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage," Musk told Penn. He added that he thought the commission had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion.

He continued: "If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome."

Musk did not specify in October which cuts he planned to make to achieve that target, which would involve slashing government spending by nearly a third; the federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.

Musk told Penn on Wednesday that he still thought the government was "a very target-rich environment for saving money."

"It's like being in a room full of targets," he added. "Like, you could close your eyes, and you can't miss."

Republican lawmakers have moved quickly to support DOGE's efforts. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia are set to lead their chambers' work with the panel.

The Tesla CEO's influence has soared since Trump's victory. In recent weeks Musk helped kill sweeping legislation to fund the federal government, briefly increasing the risk of a shutdown.

Trump has waved off concerns about Musk's political moves in Europe. The Tesla CEO has repeatedly criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and called for the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, to step aside. Musk also endorsed Germany's far-right AfD party ahead of elections next month; top leaders have pushed back.

"You mean where he likes people that tended to be conservative? I don't know the people," Trump told reporters during a wide-ranging press conference on Tuesday. "I can say Elon's doing a good job. Very smart guy."

Musk and Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Trump is set to be sworn into office on January 20.

• Republicans nearly unanimously reelected Mike Johnson as speaker of the House.
• It avoids what could've been an early embarrassment for Trump and the GOP.
• After winning, Johnson pledged to "drastically cut back the size and scope of government."

In a stunning turn of events on Friday, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was reelected as speaker of the House on the first ballot, avoiding what could have been an early embarrassment for Republicans ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.

It didn't come without some trouble.

Three House Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Keith Self of Texas — initially voted for candidates other than Johnson to serve as speaker, denying him the 218-vote majority necessary to win. Several other Republicans withheld their votes until the end of the roll call, though they ultimately voted for Johnson.

Republicans held the vote open as Johnson met with Norman and Self, and after 45 minutes, both men switched their votes — allowing him to clinch the speakership on the first ballot.

"Is the preference to have it sail through? Yes," Norman told BI in a brief interview before voting began on Friday. "We'll see how it goes."

It wasn't immediately clear as of publication how Johnson had regained the two lawmakers' support. Massie, an idiosyncratic libertarian, was the sole Republican who did not switch his vote to Johnson.

Before the vote, Johnson wrote a lengthy post on X in which he pledged to create a "working group comprised of independent experts" to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, to implement spending cuts. He also requested committees undertake "aggressive" reviews of government spending.

Republicans avoided an early embarrassment

Johnson's problem wasn't Trump — the president-elect endorsed him earlier this week. The speaker-to-be also had the support of Musk, who caused trouble for Johnson last month by helping to tank a government funding bill.

Instead, it was a group of hardline Republicans, many of whom are part of the House Freedom Caucus. Ahead of the vote, several of them had signaled their dissatisfaction with Johnson, particularly his frequent reliance on Democrats to pass major government funding bills and his decision in April of last year to allow more than $60 billion in Ukraine aid to pass the House.

With all but a handful of Republicans pledging to support the incoming speaker, it appeared that long-festering wounds within the conference — some of which were ripped open when Kevin McCarthy was deposed as speaker last year — might be reopened.

"I have a feeling some folks wake up in the morning to see what confusion and chaos they can cause every day," Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina told BI.

Trump and his allies argued that GOP unity was crucial for enacting the party's agenda, which includes passing major bills to address border security, immigration, and energy policy, raising the debt ceiling, extending the Trump tax cuts, funding the government, and eventually pursuing sweeping cuts to federal spending at the recommendation of DOGE.

"We're going to protect our industries from one-sided trade deals, and we're going to bring overseas investments back to American shores," Johnson said in a speech after claiming the gavel. "We'll defeat the harmful effects of inflation, and we'll make life affordable again for America's hard-working people."

Johnson also made a nod toward DOGE, saying that Congress would "drastically cut back the size and scope of government."

"In coordination with President Trump and his administration, we are going to create a leaner, faster, and more efficient federal workforce," Johnson said. "We need to do that."

'It's their responsibility to govern'

Despite avoiding a complete mess on Friday, Republicans will face plenty of challenges enacting the legislative pieces of Trump's 100-day agenda.

For one, Republicans will have a one-vote majority until at least April, when special elections will be held to fill vacancies caused by Trump's appointments and former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida's decision to leave the House.

The GOP is expected to try to ram through at least one party-line bill, using the special procedural power known as budget reconciliation, which allows them to pass bills through the Senate without the usual 60-vote requirement.

Republicans aren't entirely in agreement on how they'll use it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to move two separate bills, one devoted to border security and defense spending and another later in the year that would extend Trump's tax cuts. Meanwhile, some House Republicans, particularly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, want the party to move only one massive bill.

To further complicate matters, reconciliation bills should only deal with fiscal matters, and it remains to be seen what immigration-related policies would be allowed.

Beyond their ambitious policy goals, Republicans will also have to raise or suspend the debt ceiling or risk default likely sometime later this summer. Many conservatives have ideological reservations about raising the debt ceiling and have historically voted against doing so. Last month, Trump unsuccessfully sought to pressure Republicans to raise the debt ceiling before he took office.

There's also the question of how Republicans will carry out more basic tasks, including funding the government. Over the last two years, Johnson has frequently relied on Democratic votes to pass major funding bills.

"They're in the majority, and it's their responsibility to govern," Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts told BI. "It's not my responsibility to bail them out every time they have a problem."

Despite all of these challenges, Norman — one of the original Johnson holdouts — told BI he wasn't worried about his party's agenda, pointing to the fact that his party would soon control both chambers of Congress and the presidency.

"We've got so many things to be thankful for, and to be happy about, and I am," Norman said.

• A group of Republicans recently introduced a bill to repeal the Impoundment Control Act.
• It would hand Trump more control over government spending — he could even unilaterally cut it off.
• Several Republicans who backed the bill told BI they're fine with giving up congressional power.

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, some Republicans on Capitol Hill are ready to do something unusual: Relinquish some of their own power over federal spending.

More than 20 Republicans cosponsored a bill this month that would repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, or ICA, a Watergate-era law that requires the president to spend all of the money that Congress approves. In the absence of that law and subsequent court rulings, the president would have the power to spend less money than what Congress decides — or refuse to spend money on certain programs altogether.

That would bring a massive power shift from the legislative to the executive branch, upending a balance between the two that's existed for 50 years. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say it's their best hope of enacting spending cuts and reducing the national debt, given Congress's history of inaction and what they view as their colleagues' unwillingness to reduce spending.

"I think the spending is just out of control, and I think Congress is gutless," Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Business Insider. "I just don't think we're capable of making changes without some other interference, whether it be the executive branch or the voters."

"If the power is reducing expenditures, then I'm all for it," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri told BI. "Something has to be done."

"You look at where we are in this country, why not give him that power?" Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told BI, referring to the country's fiscal situation. "At this point, I'm willing to take that risk. Anything can be abused. I can drink too much water, and suffer from it."

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

'We can simply choke off the money'

Trump is no stranger to impoundment — his first impeachment was triggered by his refusal to deliver aid to Ukraine. As he's mounted his third presidential bid, Trump has argued that the ICA is unconstitutional and should be done away with, either via congressional repeal or via the courts.

"With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. "I alone can get that done."

As Trump has staffed up his administration, he's appointed staunch proponents of impoundment to key positions. That includes Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta, who have been nominated to their previously held roles of director and general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, respectively.

The president-elect's allies have argued that impoundment is a constitutional power that all presidents hold, owing to the president's duty under Article II of the US Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

They also point out that for roughly 200 years before 1974 — when Congress passed the ICA as President Richard Nixon refused to spend money on programs he disagreed with — presidents of all stripes have used impoundment for a variety of reasons, including policy disagreements.

"When Congress passes a spending bill, we pass a ceiling," Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who introduced the ICA repeal bill, told BI. "It's not a floor and ceiling put together at one number."

More recently, impoundment has been embraced by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative aims to enact trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending. The duo have publicly agreed with Trump's argument that the ICA is unconstitutional, and the topic arose when they visited Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans earlier this month.

"I look at it as a tool of saving money, and being more efficient," Clyde said. "That's what the American people literally demanded in this election."

'Maybe this is too broad'

There are plenty of opponents of impoundment on Capitol Hill, including among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming GOP chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters that she's opposed to repealing the ICA. And it's not just Trump skeptics who are uneasy with it.

"If it's something that further weakens Congress' ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada told BI in November.

Key Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed opposition to Trump's impoundment plans. Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, released a fact sheet making a case against impoundment.

"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," Boyle said in a statement. "Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people's elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk."

Republican skepticism, along with Democrats' likely opposition to any effort to give Trump more spending power, could make repealing the law via Congress an uphill battle.

The president-elect said in the 2023 video that he "will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court," queueing up what would be a high-stakes legal fight early in his second term.

What remains unclear is exactly how expansively Trump would try to use impoundment. For some of the Republicans who support the effort, it's merely about spending less than what's necessary. Others warn that Trump could use that power in a retributive way, denying federal funding to states and localities over policy disagreements.

Even those who've cosponsored the ICA repeal bill expressed some ambivalence about its potential implications.

"Maybe this is too broad. I don't know," Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told BI. "But I can tell you this: if you have a president who says 'I don't need 10 billion, I need 2 billion,' then I would like them not to spend that 8 billion. That's really kind of what the objective is, I think."

• Elon Musk is the world's first $400 billion person.
• It's not just his wealth that increased in 2024.
• Thanks to Donald Trump, Musk will enter 2025 with unprecedented power.

Elon Musk is more than just the world's richest person.

He's also the self-proclaimed "First Buddy" of President-elect Donald Trump, who will soon return to his position as leader of the free world. Trump has named Musk as co-leader of "The Department of Government Efficiency," giving the tech titan major sway over federal spending.

Like many moments in Musk's life, it's a remarkable turnaround story.

2024 began with Musk briefly relinquishing his wealthiest title, first to French luxury titan Bernard Arnault and then to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Musk's rival in space travel.

Musk had also backed the wrong candidate. In early 2024, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who Musk had aligned himself with, abruptly ended his campaign after Trump blew him out in the Iowa Republican caucuses. By March, Trump, trying to orchestrate his own comeback, privately met with Musk to ask for his financial support. In response, Musk said his checkbook was closed.

He changed his mind, spending over $277 million backing Trump and the GOP. Musk even campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state.

Musk's wealth surged after the 2024 election election. His big bet is still paying off.

January: Musk visited Auschwitz amid an uproar

Musk ended 2023 under siege. In what he later called his "dumbest" tweet ever, the billionaire promoted an antisemitic post. Media Matters, a liberal nonprofit, accused X of placing ads next to pro-Nazi content, allegations that sent advertisers fleeing the platform.

He apologized for the post but lashed out at advertisers, including Disney CEO Bob Iger, telling them "to go fuck" themselves.

In late January, Musk accepted an invitation to visit the site of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Afterward, he said he had been "naive" about the Holocaust.

February: Musk returned to the Super Bowl

Musk had a prime seat to watch the Kansas City Chiefs win their second-straight Super Bowl.

This was Musk's first big game since reports surfaced that he spent the 2023 Super Bowl frustrated that President Joe Biden's tweet received more engagement than his own. According to Platformer, Musk pressured Twitter engineers to begin working on ensuring that his future posts would get much larger exposure.

March: X abruptly ended a deal with Don Lemon after a testy interview

X is a platform that champions free speech, and we’re proud to provide an open environment for diverse voices and perspectives. The Don Lemon Show is welcome to publish its content on X, without censorship, as we believe in providing a platform for creators to scale their work…

— Business (@XBusiness) March 13, 2024

Musk's X has become a new home for many commentators, including conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon inked a deal with the platform for similar support, but those plans were scrapped after Lemon's interview with Musk.

Lemon, who later sued Musk, questioned the CEO's commitment to welcoming "diverse voices" on X in the wake of the abrupt cancellation.

"His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me," Lemon wrote in a since-deleted post.

April: Musk made a surprise visit to China

Musk sent Tesla shares higher in April amid a previously unannounced visit to China. According to Reuters, the Tesla CEO was there to soothe tensions over the automaker's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which has long been hoped to launch in its second-biggest market.

The entry of Tesla's technology into China continues to be delayed.

Musk's ties to China are receiving renewed attention given the powerful post he will occupy outside the Trump administration. Multiple House Democrats accused Musk of helping kill an initial bipartisan year-end spending bill due to including a provision that would regulate US investments in China. Congress eventually averted a government shutdown, but the final legislation did not include the investment restrictions.

"This awful creature needs to be expelled from Congress! Ugh …," Musk wrote on X, in response to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, calling him out for tanking the deal.

May: Musk welcomed Indonesia to SpaceX's Starlink

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service exploded in popularity over the year.

In May, Musk headed to the resort island of Bali to welcome Indonesia to Starlink, making it the third Southeast Asian country to receive the service.

Even bigger announcements came later in the year. In September, United Airlines announced it would launch Starlink service early next year. Several major cruise ship companies now offer Starlink as well.

Global internet traffic from Starlink more than tripled in 2024, as Business Insider previously reported.

July: Musk 'fully' endorsed Trump

I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery pic.twitter.com/ZdxkF63EqF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2024

Musk came off the sidelines in a major way by endorsing Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt. Like others in Silicon Valley, the billionaire later said admired Trump's courage.

With blood across his face, Trump held up his fist and yelled "Fight" as Secret Service agents ushered him off the stage to safety.

It wasn't fully clear at the time, but Musk had already been working to support Trump. Just a day before shots rang out, Bloomberg News reported that the Tesla CEO had donated to a pro-Trump super PAC.

October: Musk joined Trump on the campaign trail

Musk soon became one of the biggest megadonors of the entire 2024 cycle. He wasn't done trying to influence the presidential race.

In October, Musk joined Trump as the former president returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, at the exact location of the July assassination attempt.

"As you can see, I am not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA," Musk said while wearing an all-black Make American Great Again hat.

Trump's campaign seized on Musk's attire and used it to fuel further fundraising.

SpaceX showed it can catch a rocket in midair

It wasn't all politics. In mid-October, Musk's SpaceX conducted its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket.

The company made history and pulled off an engineering marvel when it demonstrated its ability to catch a 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster as it descended back toward the launchpad.

The spectacle moved Musk's vision for reusable rockets and, thus, cheaper space travel one step closer to reality.

Musk started $1 million giveaways to voters

Musk didn't stop at donating hundreds of millions to help Trump. He hit the campaign trail, focusing on Pennsylvania, widely viewed as the 2024 election's most important state.

The billionaire went even further in a controversial step, giving away $1 million to voters in swing states. The Trump ally's attorneys later admitted that the checks weren't the result of a true lottery.

Philadelphia's district attorney, Larry Krasner, filed a lawsuit in October attempting to stop the effort. Just before Election Day, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that the checks could go on.

November: The Trump-Musk bromance simmered at Mar-a-Lago

The whole squad pic.twitter.com/5yQVkFiney

— Kai Trump (@kaitrump) November 6, 2024

Late on November 5, it became clear that Trump's political comeback would be successful. Musk was at Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club to watch the results unfold.

Trump thanked Musk by name in his victory speech early the next morning.

"We have a new star, a star is born," Trump told boisterous supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, a few hours before the election was called in his favor. "Elon. He is an amazing guy."

Kai Trump, one of the president-elect's granddaughters, went even further, declaring Musk part of the family's "squad" in a photo that showed over a dozen Trumps next to Musk holding his son, X Æ A-12.

Musk, Trump, and some cabinet picks enjoyed a night out

Musk and Trump remained virtually inseparable after the election. The billionaire maintained a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago.

When the president-elect left his club, Musk would often join him. On November 16, Musk joined Trump's sprawling entourage to watch UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated to be director of national intelligence, were among those who sat nearby.

December: DOGE took over Capitol Hill

Musk wasted little time working on DOGE, the outside advisory panel that Musk and Ramaswamy have said will cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.

In December, Musk and Ramaswamy visited Capitol Hill to discuss their plans with GOP lawmakers. Musk even brought his son along.

Musk sent GOP lawmakers into chaos

Ever seen a bigger piece of pork? pic.twitter.com/ZesFCNSNKp

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024

Musk wasn't done disrupting Washington.

In mid-December, House lawmakers finally reached a deal to avoid a government shutdown just before the Christmas holiday. As was often the case, lawmakers loaded the legislation full of unrelated provisions, stretching the bill to over 1,500 pages long.

Trump's "First Buddy" soon joined a handful of conservative activists in fomenting an effort to kill the bill. Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who helped break the deal with House Democrats, had to scrap it.

There was brief concern that Musk's actions might lead to a government shutdown, an occurrence he and Trump encouraged if the final deal didn't give them what they wanted.

Ultimately, Trump didn't get his wish for lawmakers to increase the debt ceiling. Musk declared he was satisfied with the final product, which trimmed the deal down which funded the federal government through March 14, included $100 billion in disaster relief, and extended farm policies for a year.

Trump said Musk can't be president

Democrats pounced on the opportunity to blame Musk for the funding bill's death. Some even called him President Musk.

Musk responded by lashing out at Democrats. He said on X the statements were a ploy designed to drive a wedge between him and Trump.

Trump addressed the fracas just before Christmas, joking to a conservative conference that he wasn't worried about the Tesla CEO who can't be president.

"No, he's not gonna be president, that I can tell you," Trump said. "And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be, he wasn't born in this country."

• Javier Milei, the Argentine leader who has inspired Elon Musk, says he plans to cut how many taxes there are.
• He said he was planning to "eliminate 90% of taxes — not revenue, but the number of taxes."
• Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-heads of DOGE, are looking to radically trim the US federal government.

Argentina's President Javier Milei says he will reform the Argentine tax system to have no more than 6 taxes.

In a clip from an interview with Forbes Argentina, published on Sunday, Milei said: "We'll advance privatization, deepen labor reforms, and eliminate 90% of taxes — not revenue, but the number of taxes — moving to a simplified system with no more than six taxes at most."

It would be the latest sweeping move by a firebrand president who has inspired members of the incoming Trump administration.

Since taking power on December 10, 2023, Milei has presided over sweeping cuts. He fired tens of thousands of public employees, shut down half the country's 18 ministries, and reduced state spending by an estimated 31% in his first 10 months alone — making good on his pledge to take a "chainsaw" to the state.

Milei's actions caught the attention of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the men now charged with a similar task under President-elect Donald Trump.

Last month, Musk said Argentina had made "impressive progress,'" while Ramaswamy said that the US needed "Milei-style cuts on steroids."

In the interview, Milei said his administration had only accomplished the "first step" of its plan, and that what was coming next was the "deep chainsaw."

"It is not only a question of deregulating and removing these obstacles, but it also implies a new reform of the state to make it even smaller," he said.

Milei added that his administration has so far only implemented a quarter of the reforms it wants to pursue.

Argentina's latest economic figures suggest the country may be turning a corner after struggling economically.

Argentina's inflation dropped from 25.5% in December 2023 to 2.4% in November 2024. However, unemployment rose to 6.9% in Q3, from 5.7% in the same period last year.

Economic activity, meanwhile, grew 3.9% in Q3, compared to Q2.

According to BBVA projections, Argentina will achieve a fiscal balance in 2024 for the first time in 15 years. It also said that it expects Argentina's GDP to rebound strongly next year, from a 3.8% deficit in 2024 to 5.5% in 2025, driven by investments and private consumption.

However, Facundo Nejamkis, director of Opina Argentina, a political consultancy firm, told Reuters this month that Milei's cuts had ignited a "major" recession, and according to Argentina's statistics agency, the country's poverty rate rose to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, the highest rate in 30 years.

Speaking at an event at Argentina's Chamber of Commerce and Services last month, Milei said the recession was "over," after the country had gone through "a difficult period of effort and pain."

And in an episode of the Lex Fridman podcast last month, Milei advised Musk and Ramaswamy to go "all the way" in cutting US federal spending.

Reacting to Milei's latest interview on X, where he talked about eliminating the taxes, Musk wrote one word: "Impressive."

• Elon Musk has demonstrated his ability to upend Washington.
• Trump allies' and Musk's posts have once again shown the power of X.
• Recently, they nuked a government funding bill and possibly saved a cabinet nomination.

Washington better turn on its Twitter, er, X alerts again.

Elon Musk and a loose band of MAGA influencers have shown that even if Twitter wasn't real life, X just might be.

In recent days, Musk's platform has been at the center of efforts to save Pete Hegseth's embattled nomination to lead the Pentagon and to torpedo the type of 1,000-page, year-end spending bills that have joined the National Christmas Tree as a marker of the holiday season.

Democrats are saying that the world's richest man is akin to a shadow president. Some Republicans, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, are floating Musk to become the next speaker of the House.

Musk was already set to wield significant power through Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency," an advisory panel the Tesla CEO will co-lead with former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump had said relatively little about how Republicans should finish their final business before he returns to the White House. Musk upended that silence on Wednesday when he began a full-on assault on X against Speaker Mike Johnson's continuing resolution, which would have extended government funding until March 14.

"The voice of the people was heard," Musk wrote on X, quoting a Republican lawmaker's comments that cited his influence in helping kill the funding bill. "This was a good day for America."

Republicans have long complained about how party leaders fund the government with sweeping proposals, via either continuing resolution or omnibus. The conservative opposition then forces Republicans to cater more to Democrats, as leaders have to find the votes somewhere. Case in point, the year-end 2024 continuing resolution included everything from a congressional pay raise to opening the door to Washington's NFL team returning to the city proper to entice Democrats to support it. There was also $100 billion in disaster relief and a one-year extension to the law that prevents the US from reverting to decades-old farm policies. The total bill was 1,547 pages long.

Musk is also using X to urge Republicans to shut down the federal government if they don't get what they want, potentially affecting everything from pay for US service members to the status of US National Parks.

This isn't the first time Trump and his allies have wielded X. His supporters have been highly alert over the president-elect's Cabinet picks since former Rep. Matt Gaetz pulled out of contention to be the next Attorney General. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, looked to be in jeopardy amid a series of reports about his drinking habits and his treatment of women, including allegations of sexual assault.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran, expressed concern about Hegseth. In response, a wave of conservative influencers called her out by name on X, and some threatened her with a primary challenge.

"People in Iowa have a well-funded primary challenger ready against her," Charlie Kirk wrote on X. "Her political career is in serious jeopardy."

Ernst, amid the pressure campaign and after additional meetings with Hegseth, later signaled a change in tone on Hegseth's nomination. Without naming her directly, one of Ernst's incoming colleagues said one senator felt "like the entire world coming after her" for not supporting one of Trump's nominees.

"She's being plummeted with threats, with all sorts of things that don't belong in political arena, and her staff is. And so you talk about pressure, right?" Sen.-elect John Curtis of Utah said at a recent event, per Politico. "And speaking with her, she has to worry about things like, 'Well, if I vote against this nominee, what happens to my state when I need something from this administration?'"

Musk alone didn't make X powerful. He is remaking the platform, though, as evidenced by the exodus to Blue Sky and other competitors. He aims to create a free-speech oasis where it is "the best source for truth."

The X CEO has changed policies on the platform based on polls, including when he reinstated Trump's prized account after a simple survey. Musk's posts, including the ones he used to take down the government funding bill, aren't always truthful, such as when he falsely claimed Congress would receive a 40% pay raise (it was 3.5% at most).

It seems like Musk often just wants to dominate the conversation. And while his lofty goals are still in progress, Congress and the rest of the nation's capitol can't afford to ignore him.

They should also turn on Truth Social notifications for good measure.

• Lawmakers in both parties say Elon Musk played a major role in tanking a government funding bill.
• Now the government is on the brink of shutting down.
• It's an early sign of how he'll wield influence as the co-lead of DOGE.

After a government funding bill went down in flames on Wednesday, lawmakers in both parties were in agreement about one thing: Elon Musk played a huge role in bringing Washington to the brink.

"Yesterday was DOGE in action and it was the most refreshing thing I've seen since I've been here for 4 years," Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X.

"The leader of the GOP is Elon Musk," Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania wrote. "He's now calling the shots."

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance put the final nail in the coffin of the bill, but their joint statement trashing the continuing resolution — and issuing a new demand for Congress to raise the debt ceiling — came after several hours of silence on the matter.

That void was filled by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency co-lead, Vivek Ramaswamy, who savaged the bill as an example of the wasteful spending that Trump has empowered them to target for elimination during his second term. Newly galvanized by DOGE and lacking any guidance from Trump, several Republican lawmakers publicly cited arguments put forward by the two leaders to justify their opposition to the bill.

"This omnibus is the very thing the incoming Department of Government Efficiency is trying to put an end to," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri wrote on X. "A vote for this monstrosity is a vote against DOGE."

As Republican support for the bill dried up, passage through the GOP-controlled House became an impossibility, and the bill was scrapped.

Federal funding is set to run out at midnight on Friday. If lawmakers are unable to agree upon and pass a new bill by then, the government will shut down for the first time in six years, prompting flight delays, closures of national parks, and paycheck delays for federal workers.

In a statement to Business Insider, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, disputed the notion that Musk is the leader of the GOP.

"As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view," Leavitt said. "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

'This bill should not pass'

Over the past several weeks, Democrats and Republicans had been hammering out a compromise bill to fund the government through March 14. After significant delays, the bill's text was released on Tuesday night.

Aside from extending government funding at current levels for another three months, the bill also included language allowing the District of Columbia to take control of a stadium that the Washington Commanders have long sought to use, a modest pay increase for lawmakers, billions of dollars in disaster relief for states affected by recent hurricanes, and other provisions that Trump and Vance later characterized as "giveaways" to Democrats.

Musk first came out against the bill on Wednesday morning, writing on X: "This bill should not pass."

Over the course of several hours, what began as a simple statement of opposition turned into something much larger, including Musk endorsing shutting down the government until January 20 and saying that any Republican who voted for the bill would deserve to be voted out of office.

Along the way, Musk made and amplified false claims about the contents of the bill, including that it included a 40% pay raise for lawmakers (it was 3.8% maximum) and $3 billion for the Commanders' stadium.

By the time Trump and Vance weighed in on Wednesday afternoon, the bill already appeared dead, and the two men had a different demand: Lawmakers shouldn't simply shut down the government but pass a spending bill without "giveaways," while raising the debt ceiling.

Musk, the 'shadow president'

It remains unclear what legislation will emerge. Democrats have insisted on moving forward with the deal they struck with Republicans, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected in Thursday-morning a Bluesky post the idea of raising the debt ceiling.

The government spending bill's collapse was an early demonstration of Musk's newfound clout with Republicans on Capitol Hill, previewing how the mercurial billionaire might handle the role of DOGE co-lead under Trump.

Over the past two years, a pattern has emerged in government funding and other fiscal fights. Both parties work on compromise legislation, hard-line Republicans rail against it, and both the House and the Senate easily pass it with mostly Democratic votes.

On Wednesday, that pattern was broken, with a shutdown appearing imminent.

For hard-line Republicans who've typically opposed government funding bills, it marked a moment of elation and a sign that with the advent of DOGE, the balance of power is set to shift in their direction under Trump.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, have seized the moment as an opportunity to embarrass Trump, painting him as subordinate to Musk.

In a steady drumbeat of social media posts and TV interviews, Democrats have begun referring to Musk as the "president-elect," the "shadow president," the "copresident," and even the "decider in chief" as they've attacked Republicans for opposing the bill.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, released a fact sheet about "what Elon will cost your state" that said "President-Elect Musk's" opposition to the government funding bill had also derailed disaster-relief funds.

"It is dangerous for House Republicans to have folded to the demands of the richest man on the planet, who nobody elected, after leaders in both parties came to an agreement to fund the government and provide this disaster aid," DeLauro said in a statement. "There was no need for a government shutdown."

Musk, for his part, rejected the notion that he was the real leader of the GOP.

"All I can do is bring things to the attention of the people," he wrote on X, "so they may voice their support if they so choose."

• Elon Musk endorsed shutting down the government until Trump takes office on January 20.
• He and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading a MAGA online pressure campaign against a must-pass funding bill.
• Some GOP lawmakers are listening, and Trump eventually came out against the bill.

In a post on X on Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk endorsed the idea of shutting the government down until January 20, the date that President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn into office.

It was the latest missive in a pressure campaign that Musk, along with fellow DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy and a host of hardline Republicans on Capitol Hill, have been leading against a so-called "continuing resolution" that would fund the government through March 14.

Just over an hour later, Trump and Vice-President-elect JD Vance called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill in a joint statement, saying that the current one contained too many "giveaways" to Democrats.

Trump and Vance also called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, a task that lawmakers had not contemplated as part of the funding bill and that they had planned to tackle in the first months of the new year.

"I expected Elon to go off on this a little bit," Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a staunch Trump ally, told reporters on Wednesday. Mullin said that he remains undecided on the bill, but said that Musk's and others' campaign would "greatly" affect its fate in the House, where lawmakers could take a vote as soon as Wednesday evening.

Opponents of the bill have pointed to a range of provisions that they view as wasteful, including an extension of pandemic preparedness legislation, provisions to allow the Washington Commanders to use the old RFK stadium in Washington, DC, funding for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State, and a provision that will allow lawmakers to see a modest pay increase for the first time since 2009.

Wednesday's pressure campaign, which ramped up over the course of the day after Musk and Ramaswamy expressed initial opposition to the bill, provided an early glimpse of how the two men may approach government spending fights under Trump. Both of them are leading an initiative tasked with recommending up to $2 trillion in cuts to government spending by 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy's voices appeared to only be amplified by the fact that Trump himself didn't weigh in on the bill until late in the day.

"What we've heard from both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is they want us to shut down government," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, according to HuffPost. "Is that the posture of the President?"

Several House Republicans directly cited Musk and Ramaswamy as they expressed their opposition to the bill on Wednesday, while others invoked DOGE to pressure their colleagues to join them in voting against the bill.

"So many members of Congress want the clout of working with @DOGE and @ElonMusk," Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wrote on X. "Only a handful are actually interested in cutting spending."

Musk also wrote that "any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!"

Just as Musk's prior pressure campaign to install Sen. Rick Scott of Florida as Senate GOP leader failed, Wednesday's campaign against the continuing resolution appeared to show the limits of Musk's grasp on Capitol Hill and legislation.

Both Musk himself and the DOGE X account claimed that the bill would increase lawmakers' salaries by 40%, a vastly inflated figure. According to the Congressional Research Service, the maximum possible increase would be 3.8%.

• Elon Musk, a cohead of the cost-cutting commission DOGE, said on X that the bill "should not pass."
• The 1,547-page proposal would fund the government through mid-March.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a release he spoke with Musk on Tuesday about his displeasure.

Hours after lawmakers released an eleventh-hour bill to fund the government through the middle of March, Elon Musk weighed in on the proposal.

"Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?" he asked in a post on X above a photo of the 1,547-page bill.

Musk is set to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget by July 4, 2026, alongside the biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.

In his own post late on Tuesday, Ramaswamy urged every representative and senator to read the bill. Musk minced no words when he reposted his cohead's statement.

"This bill should not pass," Musk wrote.

If passed, the stop-gap spending bill will fund the government through March 14 and avert a government shutdown, leaving Congress to deal with major spending choices after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The bill includes $100 billion in disaster relief, $10 billion in economic aid for farmers, and the first pay raise for members of Congress since 2009.

Ramaswamy issued a scathing rejection of the bill in a six-paragraph X post on Wednesday, writing: "It's full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways & pork barrel politics."

Among other provisions, Ramaswamy criticized the stimulus for farmers, disaster relief, and pay raise for members of Congress and compared the additional "feel good" spending to "showering cocaine on an addict." He also said that the bill could have been fewer than 20 pages.

How members of Congress vote will, he said at the end of his post, show how serious they are about working with DOGE. "This is an early test," he wrote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a press release that he had spoken with Musk and Ramaswamy in a text chain on Tuesday night. The two "understand the situation," the speaker said in the release.

"They said, it's not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don't like the spending," Johnson said. "I said, guess what, fellas, I don't either."

Musk and Ramaswamy have already begun publicizing prospective targets for cuts, including scaling back the federal workforce and slashing departments. The two have met with GOP lawmakers to discuss their goals, though details of the meeting remain scarce.

Representatives for Johnson and Ramaswamy declined to comment further for this article, and Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy aim to cut up to $2 trillion from the federal budget by July 4, 2026.
• They've said they'll fire federal employees, "delete" agencies, and publicize all of their work.
• The DOGE leaders have name-dropped many causes they may target, like DEI efforts and public media.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have big plans for the Department of Government Efficiency.

The two have promised to significantly reduce the federal budget, with Musk saying in October he wanted to cut $2 trillion. He scaled back his estimate during a broadcast on X in January, saying that $2 trillion was a "best-case outcome." During the broadcast, Musk said that he thinks DOGE has a "good shot" of saving $1 trillion.

Federal spending reached $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, with nine-tenths going to federal programs. President-elect Donald Trump has long sworn not to touch Social Security or Medicare benefits, which comprise a significant chunk of the budget.

Here's a running list of things Musk and Ramaswamy have said they'll do as they gear up to take on this new role.

Representatives for Musk and Trump didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment. A representative for Ramaswamy declined to comment.

Slash regulations

Musk and Ramaswamy plan to suggest regulations for Trump to cut, and they said Trump could then use executive actions to pause the regulations and begin the removal process.

The coheads outlined their ideas in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal and said they planned to lean on two recent US Supreme Court rulings, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The cases, they said, "suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law."

Some legal experts previously told BI that the DOGE leaders were misinterpreting the lawsuits, which they said didn't add to the executive branch's ability to curb regulations. Under the rulings, agencies still need to comply with a lengthy administrative process to change or overturn rules, the experts said.

'Delete' entire agencies, or at least vastly change them

A key part of DOGE's cost-cutting agenda has to do with scaling back government agencies — Ramaswamy promised that the group would "delete" entire departments. Political scientists and fellows at Washington think tanks previously told BI that deleting departments outright almost always requires congressional approval, making DOGE's goal seem unrealistic to some. Musk has said he wants to trim the number of federal agencies down to no more than 99.

Here are some of the agencies DOGE plans to target:

Planned Parenthood and public media may be impacted

Musk and Ramaswamy criticized the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and "progressive groups like Planned Parenthood" in their op-ed. They said DOGE would try to curb federal spending "by taking aim" at the funds appropriated for those services, among others.

The CPB is the largest funding source for public radio, television, and online services, primarily for local public media — in the fiscal year 2024, it had a budget of $535 million. Congress created the CPB and authorizes the budget. Between 2019 and 2021, American affiliates of Planned Parenthood received about $148 million in federal grants, according to the Government Accounting Office.

Target expired federal spending commitments

Musk and Ramaswamy said in their op-ed that they planned to go after expired federal expenditures. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $516 billion worth of federal appropriations in 2024 have expired, with the largest programs in terms of spending relating to veterans' healthcare, drug development, and NASA. Neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have specified which expired authorizations they'd target.

Reduce the federal workforce

Musk and Ramaswamy have said they want to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce, though haven't specified precisely how many employees should be cut. There were more than 2 million federal employees as of 2023, according to the nonpartisan group the Partnership for Public Service.

Civil-service workers benefit from job protections that make it difficult to fire them, but the DOGE co-leaders said in their Journal article that Trump could implement "reductions in force" that aren't directed at individual employees.

In the op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy said that after eliminating federal regulations, "mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy" would follow. They plan to determine the minimum number of employees needed at each department and said they might enact policies that lead some staffers to voluntarily resign, such as return-to-office mandates, early retirement offers, and severance packages.

Federal employee salaries don't comprise a big chunk of the budget — not including military personnel, their annual salaries and benefits total about $305 billion, or 4% of spending, The Washington Post reported. If Musk and Ramaswamy got rid of 25% of the federal workforce, government spending would fall by about 1%.

Relocate some federal agencies and reform building use

Musk and Ramaswamy raised the possibility of relocating federal agencies outside Washington in their op-ed, a point that Ramaswamy has spoken more about online and in interviews. When talking to Fox News in November, he said he "absolutely" wanted to move agencies elsewhere and called the fact that some employees don't go into the office a "dirty little secret."

In a post on X from late November, Ramaswamy said addressing the cost of maintaining federal buildings "sounds like a job for DOGE." A 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office found that 17 of the agencies reviewed used about 25% or less of their buildings' space. The federal government spends about $2 billion each year to maintain federal office buildings and $5 billion to lease space to agencies, the report found.

Conduct audits of agencies

In their opinion piece, Musk and Ramaswamy said audits conducted during temporary payment suspensions could bring big savings. They called out the Pentagon and wrote that the agency failed its seventh consecutive audit. Support for the proposal came from an unlikely place: progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders. In a post on X, Sanders said that "Elon Musk is right," adding that the Pentagon had "lost track of billions."

Publicize all the changes the commission makes

Musk said in a post on X that he'd publish all of DOGE's actions online for "maximum transparency."

"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" he wrote. In the same post, he said DOGE would create a "leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending." Ramaswamy promised in a post that DOGE would start "crowdsourcing" for sources of waste and fraud.

Hire employees

In addition to Musk and Ramaswamy, DOGE has announced one official hire: William Joseph McGinley as the commission's counsel. The commission is actively recruiting employees, according to its X account, though their identities have not yet been shared and the hiring process remains unclear.

In a post on X from November, the commission said it was seeking "super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week" and that thousands have indicated interest. Applicants should message the account their CV and the co-leaders would review top contenders, the post said.

Musk said in his own post from that month that the jobs will be unpaid. Yet in late December and early January, DOGE's account said in two separate posts that the commission was looking for people to fill a "very small" amount of "full-time salaried HR, IT, and Finance positions" and "full-time salaried Software Engineers and InfoSec Engineers."

Again, interested applicants were instructed to send their qualifications and reasons for interest in a direct message, with the instructions varying slightly per position.

Disband DOGE no later than July 4, 2026

When Trump announced the creation of DOGE, he said the committee would disband by July 4, 2026. The committee's leaders, though, have said they think their work will be done earlier.

Musk said on X that DOGE would complete its goals "much faster," and Ramaswamy told Fox News that "people will be surprised by, I think, how quickly we're able to move with some of those changes." To complete its work, DOGE plans to employ "a lean team of small-government minded crusaders" that works closely with the Office of Management and Budget, the leaders' opinion piece said.

They've hinted at abolishing daylight-saving time and other initiatives

Though posts on X don't equate to an official DOGE plan, Musk and Ramaswamy have both posted about other things they may tackle in their roles, some of which would require congressional approval.

Musk has posted about abolishing daylight-saving time, spending in Afghanistan, and "fake jobs" in the government.

Ramaswamy said in his posts that DOGE could be used to address subsidies from the CHIPS Act, DEI efforts at universities, and how the federal government buys technology services.

DOGE's X account has posted repeatedly about publicly funded infrastructure projects, including the California High Speed Rail project, which aims to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. First approved in 2008, the project's timeline and budget have grown in the years since. Though DOGE's posts on X don't specify precise plans for existing infrastructure projects, they criticize the permitting and regulation process.

Have you applied or considered applying to work at DOGE? Share your experience and thoughts with this reporter at [email protected].

Correction: December 13, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the end date for DOGE; it is set to end July 4, 2026, not June 4, 2026. The story also overstated the number of existing federal agencies.

• Donald Trump said Elon Musk won't try to use his new power to benefit his companies.
• He said Musk is one of "very few people" who would have the credibility to do such work.
• Musk's work with DOGE will likely give him some power over agencies that regulate his companies.

In a new interview with Time Magazine, President-elect Donald Trump brushed back concerns that Elon Musk's companies could create a conflict of interest for his work on DOGE.

"I think that Elon puts the country long before his company," Trump said in the interview.

Trump, who Time named its 2024 Person of the Year, said that he trusts Musk, whose companies hold billions in federal contracts.

"He considers this to be his most important project, and he wanted to do it," Trump told Time. "And, you know, I think, I think he's one of the very few people that would have the credibility to do it, but he puts the country before, and I've seen it, before he puts his company."

Musk and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have said they will remain outside the government as they oversee "The Department of Government Efficiency" or DOGE.

By staying outside of the government, Musk will avoid some ethical requirements that could have required him to divest some of his fortune. He also won't have to file a financial disclosure, which would have given a snapshot of his considerable holdings.

DOGE could have some influence over government agencies that have investigated Musk's businesses. Musk has repeatedly fought with the FAA, which has jurisdiction over his company SpaceX. The billionaire tussled with the Securities Exchange Commission, which led to Musk being forced to step down as chairman of Tesla Inc. The SEC is looking into Musk's takeover of Twitter. The Department of Justice has also investigated Musk's companies, including whether Telsa misled investors about self-driving capabilities.

Some details about DOGE are still up in the air, including whether the panel will comply with the legal requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Legal experts and those familiar with the law have said Musk's "department" clearly falls under the 1972 law's parameters. The law would require DOGE to conduct some of its work publicly and to balance its membership.

Musk has embraced his aura of being Trump's "first buddy" and has been virtually inseparable from the president-elect since Election Day.

In the wide-ranging Time interview, Trump said it will be "hard" to bring down grocery prices. A number of economists have warned that Trump's protectionist trade policies could exacerbate inflation. A spokesperson for Trump's transition did not immediately respond to. Business Insider's request for comment.

• Legal experts say it is obvious that Elon Musk's DOGE falls under a federal transparency law.
• The Federal Advisory Committee Act was created to bring order to outside forces weighing in on policy.
• The law would require DOGE to hold public meetings and balance its membership.

Disrupting the federal government might be harder than Elon Musk thought.

President-elect Donald Trump appointed Musk and former 2024 challenger Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the sweeping "Department of Government Efficiency," which aims to cut $2 trillion out of the federal budget.

According to legal experts, Musk and Ramaswamy's work may be complicated by a decades-old government transparency law — the exact type of bureaucracy the world's richest man has chafed against when his companies have tangled with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the FAA.

Congress wrote the Federal Advisory Committee Act in 1972 to rein in the larger number of outside advisors who weighed in on policy matters either at the president's or a specific Cabinet agency's behest. It is designed for panels like DOGE, which are led by people outside the federal government. Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that they would not officially join the Trump administration.

"Though not much information has come out yet about DOGE, it certainly looks like it is not going to be a department or government agency, it will be an advisory commission, and for that reason, it will fall under FACA's purview," Jason Arnold, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Business Insider.

Musk wrote on X last month that DOGE would post its "all actions" publicly online, but it's unclear if that means the billionaires will fully comply with the law.

The law says Musk and Ramaswamy need to appoint a Democrat.

The advisory act would affect DOGE's operations almost immediately. The law requires that panels that fall under its definition be comprised of a balanced membership in terms of "the points of view represented."

If Trump formally authorizes DOGE after he is sworn in next month, his initial order would need to take this into account. For example, when President Obama created the Bowles-Simpson commission in 2010, his executive order required the 18-member panel to include Republicans and Democrats. The commission, tasked with getting the nation's finances in order, was also co-chaired by a Democrat, former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, and a Republican, former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

So far, Trump has named William Joseph McGinley, a long-time attorney for Republican causes, to be DOGE's general counsel. Musk has already said that DOGE is looking for staffers willing to work 80-plus hours a week for no money.

"Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero. What a great deal!" Musk wrote on X.

Posting DOGE's activities online might not be enough.

If DOGE complies with the act, it would also have to try to hold public meetings.

Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Bowles-Simpson's actual name, held six public hearings and culminated its work with a final report that caused a political uproar over its recommendations to raise the Social Security retirement age, increase the federal gas tax, and cut Pentagon spending. The act requires at least 15 days of formal notice before a meeting and for explanations to be provided if the panel moves to conduct a private session.

It's not hard to see how the public disclosure requirements could become a political headache for Trump's White House, especially if DOGE considers changes to Social Security and Medicare. Unlike most traditional Republicans, Trump has shied away from embracing major reforms to the popular programs. Ramaswamy told Axios that DOGE would look elsewhere for cuts.

Trump and his two advisors have already sparked the ire of some Republicans on Capitol Hill by promising they may try to unilaterally cancel spending, a process known as impoundment that Congress made mostly illegal in 1974.

Musk and Trump could still try to ignore the law.

Just because DOGE looks to fit the definition of the advisory act, doesn't mean the law's application is a simple business. In describing the law, the Congressional Research Service, lawmakers' nonpartisan research arm, concluded that it may ultimately fall to the courts to determine if FACA applies.

Arnold said if Trump and Musk go this route, it may take years to resolve the dispute. This, along with some of the act's vagueness in areas like what constitutes balanced membership, leaves some loopholes.

"There are a lot of flaws with the law, one of them is that there are no penalties for violations," said Arnold, who researched FACA for his book "Secrecy in the Sunshine Era." "It's almost up to the goodwill or the legal concerns of the administration to follow through."

The Trump transition team and McGinley did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy, told USA Today everyone around DOGE "is committed to making sure all DOGE activities are conducted properly and in full compliance with ethical and legal requirements."

Past White Houses have tried to argue they could do business behind closed doors. President Clinton fought off attempts to argue that then-first lady Hillary Clinton's participation in closed-door discussions over the administration's healthcare plan ran afoul of the act. President George W. Bush's White House engaged in a years-long legal fight over whether it needed to disclose details from his energy task force which Vice President Dick Cheney chaired. It was later revealed that then-Enron CEO Ken Lay was among a host of fossil fuel executives who met with the secretive panel.

When Obama formed the Bowles-Simpson commission, then-House Minority Leader John Boehner called on the White House to make sure the panel didn't try to do its work behind closed doors.

"If it is your intent to have all proceedings of the Commission adhere to FACA, will the Commission notice all meetings in the Federal Register 15 days in advance, open all meetings to the public, and make all meeting minutes available for public inspection?" Boehner wrote to Simpson and Bowles in 2010.

Musk is already getting to work on DOGE. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa are expected to lead their respective chambers' work with the panel. Musk was on Capitol Hill this week to discuss what his department will do — those talks were behind closed doors.

"There won't be a lot of detail for the press today, and that's by design," House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. "This is a brainstorming session."

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of DOGE, visited Capitol Hill on Thursday.
• GOP lawmakers were generally upbeat about the duo's plan to cut spending.
• But the details of how they'll do it remain vague.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy paid a visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday, meeting with GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate to discuss their much-anticipated "Department of Government Efficiency," otherwise known as DOGE.

But while their visit generated all of the buzz that one might expect from an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the world's richest man, it left little clarity about what, exactly, President-elect Donald Trump's new government-efficiency effort would actually do.

"There won't be a lot of detail for the press today, and that's by design," House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. "This is a brainstorming session."

Musk and Ramaswamy had spent their mornings meeting separately with an array of GOP senators to discuss government efficiency. With Johnson in tow, they were now meeting with members of the House and Senate's newly formed DOGE caucus in the Capitol basement. After that, they would speak with a larger group of Republicans in a nearby auditorium. Democrats were apparently not invited to any of those meetings, despite a handful of them expressing interest in the new project. "I would have liked to attend the meeting," Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York wrote on X, calling the one-party nature of the affair "unfortunate."

With all of the attention that DOGE is generating (at least 100 reporters and staff members had assembled outside the basement meeting room to catch a glimpse of Musk, who was carrying his son X-Æ-12 on his shoulders) it still remains unclear how the initiative will achieve Musk's goal of $2 trillion in spending cuts — and which programs might end up on the chopping block.

That's despite the best efforts of the Capitol Hill press corps, who peppered Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina with several such questions as he left a meeting with Ramaswamy on Thursday morning.

How would DOGE succeed when so many previous government reform initiatives have failed? "You're way too ahead, that question is way too early for this process," Tillis replied.

Does Musk have too many conflicts of interest to run DOGE, given some of his companies' reliance on government largesse? "You're way too early, you're already anticipating what the priorities are going to be," Tillis replied.

Were there any specific departments discussed in the meeting? "Way too early," Tillis replied.

Despite the lack of broad clarity, Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out some initial plans for DOGE, including using recent Supreme Court rulings to challenge and roll back existing regulations, reevaluate federal government's contracts, shrink the federal workforce, and going after taxpayer funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood. Musk has also indicated an interest in addressing wasteful spending in the military, drawing the interest of progressives.

Republicans also have their own long-standing pet projects that they're eager to see DOGE take up. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, the chair of the Senate DOGE caucus, has already identified $2 trillion in cuts that she'd like to see. More broadly, Republicans are generally eager to shrink government expenditures at any chance they might get.

Rep. David Schweikert, a debt-obsessed Republican from Arizona, told BI that his initial skepticism about Musk and Ramaswamy was assuaged after attending the DOGE caucus meeting with the duo, which he said focused more on the mechanics of how cuts might be pursued than specific line items to be targeted.

"There seemed to be a much deeper understanding of the structural issues and structural barriers than I expected," said Schweikert. "I left genuinely impressed."

Johnson told reporters that Thursday's meeting were the "beginning of a journey" for lawmakers, and he's probably right.

It's hard to see DOGE coming anywhere close to $2 trillion in cuts without touching entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, which would likely become a major political headache for Republicans if pursued.

And the organization that Musk and Ramaswamy are set to run will only be able to make recommendations. While Trump may seek to veer into legally treacherous terrain by asserting his authority to simply refuse to spend congressionally approved funds, any major reform proposals will likely need the approval of majorities in both chambers — itself a treacherous task, given their slim majorities.

But as long as DOGE remains a collection of platitudes, everyone involved will be on the same page — and is eager to snap a selfie with Musk.

"This is sort of the opening bell, I think, of something that's going to be really great," said Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri.

• Most Democrats aren't interested in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's "DOGE" initiative.
• But a handful of them are signaling an openness to working with DOGE on specific issues.
• "A broken clock is right twice a day," said one DOGE-curious House Democrat.

As Republicans rush to embrace Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's "Department of Government Efficiency," most Democrats have taken a dismissive, even adversarial approach to the new initiative.

"Musk is a narcissist, a grifter, and a self-serving plutocrat," said Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas. "I don't have my hopes up that Elon Musk is going to do anything other than really awful, stupid, self-serving stuff."

It's not hard to see why. Ramaswamy was one of the more right-wing 2024 GOP presidential candidates, while Musk — who just spent an immense sum of his own money to get Donald Trump elected — has emerged in recent years as a Democratic boogeyman. And while the exact contours of DOGE's agenda remain vague, there are already signs that progressive priorities could fall victim to Musk and Ramaswamy's proposals for deep spending cuts.

Yet a handful of Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness to engage, eyeing DOGE as an unlikely opportunity to push their own long-standing policy goals.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, see tackling wasteful military spending as a potential point of common cause with DOGE.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, meanwhile, became the first Democrat to join the House's DOGE caucus on Tuesday. He told BI that his "singular focus" would be restructuring the Department of Homeland Security by making the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service each report directly to the president.

"If this is where that conversation is going to happen, I'm happy to be at the table," said Moskowitz. "And if they want to do stupid stuff, I'll call it out and I'll vote against it."

The three lawmakers' DOGE-curious posturing also offers an early look at how some Democrats, fresh off of a defeat in the 2024 election, plan to cautiously engage with a Trump administration that's set to pursue a more radical transformation of the country than the first time around.

Khanna, a Silicon Valley-based progressive who remains cordial with Musk, appears to be taking the billionaire businessman seriously when he says he wants to examine the Pentagon's budget, citing Musk's past criticism of bloated defense contracts. The congressman has also previously suggested that Democrats have unduly alienated Musk in recent years.

"If Musk is going to help bring accountability to defense contractors, that's something that Democrats should welcome," said Khanna.

But other progressives who want military spending cuts are much more suspicious.

"I highly doubt that one of the largest defense contractors in the United States — and by that, I mean Elon Musk — is going to opt for the federal government to cut the money that he is receiving directly from them," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. "He relies on the federal government to give him money."

Sanders, who wrote on X that Musk "is right" when it comes to bloated military spending, may simply be using the unexpected synergy to highlight an issue he's long cared about. The Vermont senator told BI that he hasn't directly engaged with Musk, and that it remains to be seen how seriously the SpaceX founder should be taken on the issue.

"I would hope that he is serious," said Sanders. "If you want to save taxpayer dollars, you do it not by cutting programs for hungry children, but by getting rid of the waste and fraud in the military."

Despite these small areas of potential agreement, much of what Musk and Ramaswamy have floated so far is likely to be anathema to the average Democratic lawmaker. There's a reason why it's Republicans, not Democrats, who are set to meet with the duo at the Capitol on Thursday.

Last week, Musk said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established by President Barack Obama that regulates financial services, should be eliminated. And Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota warned that Musk and Ramaswamy want to "defund Planned Parenthood" after the duo called out the organization as a recipient of "federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended."

That's not deterring lawmakers like Khanna and Moskowitz just yet.

"Obviously, if they're targeting areas that are going to lead to less education funding or less consumer protection, we need to speak up passionately, vociferously, and oppose it," said Khanna. "But our opposition will be much more effective and reasonable if we're willing to work with them on areas where there is government fraud and abuse."

"Some of these recommendations, I'm sure, will be horrible," said Moskowitz. "But a broken clock is right twice a day, so if there are things that they find that we can improve, shouldn't we give it a chance?"

But while Khanna could end up serving on a new DOGE subcommittee set to be chaired by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Moskowitz says he's steering clear.

"I'm not interested in doing anything Marjorie Taylor Greene touches," said Moskowitz. "She's not a serious member."

• Trump has started announcing who will work at the Department of Government Efficiency.
• As of early January, Trump appointed William McGinley as counsel and said Katie Miller would join.
• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE co-heads, have also encouraged everyday Americans to apply.

President-elect Donald Trump has started to announce who will staff the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting commission helmed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. In addition to significantly paring back the federal budget, DOGE says it aims to roll back regulations and reform government agencies.

Musk and Ramaswamy have dropped details on how DOGE will work, promising to staff the advisory board with "a lean team of small-government crusaders." DOGE's account on X has said it is hiring for a small number of full-time, salaried roles in engineering, HR, IT, and finance, though Musk previously said that employees will be unpaid.

Various Silicon Valley leaders, including investor Marc Andreessen and Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick, have reportedly been involved with planning for the commission.

Musk previously said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. In 2024, federal spending totaled $6.75 trillion, nine-tenths of which went to federal programs.

Representatives for Musk and Ramaswamy did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

William McGinley had been on Trump's radar for other roles

In early December, Trump named McGinley the commission's counsel on Truth Social: "Bill will play a crucial role in liberating our Economy from burdensome Regulations, excess spending, and Government waste." In his role, Trump said that McGinley would advise the Office of Management and Budget on how to pare down federal bureaucracy.

McGinley is a Republican lawyer who has served as counsel for the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. On November 12, Trump tapped him to serve as White House counsel, but rolled that back without offering an explanation.

The same day he shared McGinley's DOGE role, Trump also said that David Warrington was his new pick for White House counsel.

Musk and Ramaswamy explained in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed how DOGE would use legal precedent. They said they will rely on two Supreme Court rulings to help Trump roll back regulations. Legal experts, however, have told BI that the DOGE leaders are misinterpreting the SCOTUS cases and that some of the commission's work could face legal challenges.

McGinley did not respond to BI's request for comment.

Katie Miller has worked for Trump before

Trump said in late December that Katie Miller, press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence and deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, will join DOGE. She is married to Stephen Miller, Trump's incoming deputy chief of policy and a longtime adviser.

"Katie is a deeply experienced communications professional respected by all," Trump wrote in a post announcing her appointment. He did not specify her precise role, writing only that she is "joining DOGE!"

Miller responded with her own post on X, writing, "Deeply honored to work for you at DOGE to make our government efficient and accountable." Musk welcomed her in a comment responding to the post.

A representative for Miller did not respond to BI's request for comment.

• Elon Musk criticized the F-35 program on Sunday.
• Musk's comments come as he prepares to advise Trump on government efficiency in 2025.
• The GAO expects the F-35 program to cost about $2 trillion over its entire lifespan.

Elon Musk, who's set to start advising President-elect Donald Trump on government efficiency in 2025, criticized the Pentagon's F-35 program in two social media posts on Sunday.

The billionaire reposted a video montage of coordinated drone swarms on X, writing: "Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35."

He added a "trash can" emoji to his post.

When another X user defended the F-35's capabilities, Musk responded that the prized jet is a "shit design."

In another post, Musk said: "Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot."

"'Stealth' means nothing", he added, saying that it's "laughably easy" to shoot down fighter jets.

Musk has made similar arguments several times over the years.

Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher in military technology at the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss university ETH Zurich, told BI that Musk was echoing valid criticisms of the F-35 program.

But, he said, there were many problems with Musk's line of thinking.

Gilli acknowledged that the F-35 program has had well-documented cost and time overruns. But those problems are not primarily down to them being crewed aircraft, he told BI.

"The primary source of costs and problems was the electronics and, in particular, the software," he said.

And that would only get more expensive with a drone equivalent, he added.

"A drone operating within enemy airspace will not be remotely controlled," Gilli said. "It will need to have a very high level of autonomy."

This requires even more costly and complex electronics and software than even a piloted aircraft, he suggested.

According to Gilli, Musk's suggestion is to rely on something that has "so far been the primary source of cost and time delays. And so there is no reason to believe that these drones would be any cheaper."

Musk's emphasis on a "reusable" drone also means it would need all the same stealth capabilities as an F-35 in penetrating enemy airspace and evading air defenses, Gilli said, making his comments about stealth a moot point.

A target for DOGE?

It's unclear if Musk intends to use his new position to impact any plans or costs for the F-35, the Pentagon's most expensive fighter program to date.

But he mentioned Defense Department spending in a column in The Wall Street Journal that criticized federal government budgets.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," Musk wrote in the column with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is to lead Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency with him.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that the intention of their department is to eliminate the "sheer magnitude of waste, fraud, and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end."

As for the F-35, costs for the Lockheed Martin-developed stealth jet have hit about $485 billion, after a 10% bump this year due to what the Pentagon said was a need to improve its engine cooling.

Around 1,000 of the planes have been delivered to the US military and its allies, out of a total of over 3,000 aircraft planned for production over the F-35 program's lifetime.

The jet's operational lifespan is estimated to last until 2088, and the Government Accountability Office thus expects the F-35 program to cost over $2 trillion to produce and sustain.

Musk did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, but he's said before that the US should consider remote-piloted alternatives to manned jets, both to keep up with the rise in drone warfare and also to help Air Force procurement stay competitive.

In response to Musk's tweets, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told BI that the F-35 is "the most advanced, survivable and connected fighter aircraft in the world, a vital deterrent and the cornerstone of joint all-domain operations."

"As we did in his first term, we look forward to a strong working relationship with President Trump, his team, and also with the new Congress to strengthen our national defense," they added.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesperson told BI: "We have combat capable aircraft in operation today and they perform exceptionally well against the threat for which they were designed."

The spokesperson added: "Pilots continually emphasize that this is the fighter they want to take to war if called upon."

• GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa is set to lead the new DOGE caucus in the US Senate.
• She said on Fox News on Sunday that her goal is to make the federal establishment "squeal."
• It remains unclear how the new Department of Government Efficiency and Senate caucus will function.

Republican Joni Ernst, a senator from Iowa, is set to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) caucus in the US Senate.

Ernst said on Fox News on Sunday that her goal is to make the federal establishment "squeal" through massive spending cuts.

"When I went into the United States Senate 10 years ago, my promise was to make 'em squeal. We are doing just that with the Department of Government Efficiency," Ernst said, adding that she has spent the last decade working to reduce government waste and that her office publishes a monthly memo — called the "Squeal Awards" — listing different examples of "waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government."

She pointed to federal allocations to infrastructure projects, such as California's high-speed rail project, which has faced obstacles and delays, as examples of waste. The California high-speed rail project is over a decade behind schedule and $100 billion over budget despite receiving billions of dollars of federal funding, The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year.

Ernst also accused federal workers of favoring remote work because they only work "maybe 10 hours a week." Business Insider has reported that return-to-office mandates do not make businesses more productive or valuable.

"I sat down with Vivek Ramaswamy this last week and provided him with a blueprint of $2 trillion of savings nearly immediately," Ernst said. "We can take all of the research that has been done in my office over the last decade and provide them a very clear blueprint for success."

The federal government's spending in the 2024 fiscal year was $6.75 trillion. Nine-tenths of the government's budget each year goes to federal programs, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nearly a quarter of the budget — 24%, or $1.6 trillion — goes to health insurance programs, while 21%, or $1.4 trillion, goes to Social Security. Another 13%, equal to $820 billion, of the budget is spent on defense initiatives.

Federal budget experts have expressed doubt that DOGE, which will be co-led by Elon Musk and Ramaswamy, will have the authority to make such drastic cuts. As a newly formed department under Donald Trump's second administration, it remains unclear how DOGE or the Senate caucus will function or what powers it will be granted.

Trump has said that the department will focus on reducing bureaucracy and making massive spending cuts to increase government efficiency. Musk wants to hire "small-government revolutionaries" to staff the department, and Ramaswamy said earlier this month that the non-governmental department intends to "delete" entire federal agencies.

Ernst's office announced the creation of the DOGE Senate caucus on Friday to "serve as the 'bite' to partner with the 'bark' of Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency," according to a press release. The caucus will include Senators John Cornyn of Texas, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

Representatives for Ernst declined to comment when reached by Business Insider.

• Mick Mulvaney said he doubts Musk can cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, per NYT.
• Mulvaney also told clients he doesn't think Musk will be around long enough to his cuts through.
• Musk and Ramaswamy outlined their cost-cutting plans in a recent opinion piece.

Mick Mulvaney, President-elect Donald Trump's second chief of staff, doubts that Elon Musk will achieve his lofty goal of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget, sources told the New York Times.

On a recent call with clients of Actum, the lobbying firm where Mulvaney now works, the former Cabinet member told the 70-odd people listening to the call that Musk will soon discover that "going to Mars is easier" than radically reforming the federal budget, according to the Times. Musk founded SpaceX with a goal of colonizing the Red Planet and wore an "Occupy Mars" shirt at a Trump rally in October.

Trump recently appointed Musk the co-lead of the Department of Government Efficiency, along with biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. The two have vowed to slim the federal workforce, "delete" agencies, and fundamentally reshape how the government spends money.

As the former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president's budget requests for Congress, Mulvaney has intimate knowledge of how federal spending works. He said on the call that he doesn't anticipate DOGE will successfully implement structural changes to how the federal government conducts business, and doubts that Musk will stay in his upcoming role long enough to see his goals through.

Mulvaney also reportedly predicted that tech executives, including venture capitalist David Sacks and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, will have a big influence on Trump's second-term agenda.

Musk and Ramaswamy outlined their plans for DOGE in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. They intend to rely on recent Supreme Court rulings, sweeping executive orders, and early retirement incentives, among other measures.

Though doubts prevail, Musk has been known to succeed against all odds in the private sector — both Tesla and SpaceX have rebounded from near financial collapse, making him the richest man in the world. But he's already faced some setbacks in his new government advisory role, such as his failed push to make Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick the nominee for Treasury secretary.

Representatives for Trump and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal detailing their vision for cutting government costs.
• One major target is a list of programs with expired congressional funding authorization, totaling $516 billion.
• The largest items on that list include veterans' healthcare, college grants, and housing assistance.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are eyeing recommendations to trim a list of government programs that include veterans' healthcare, childcare grants, and NASA.

The leaders of President-elect Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, wrote in a Wednesday opinion piece that the commission will target cuts to federal spending that's "unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended."

The opinion piece provided few details on the exact programs DOGE will cut; however, DOGE posted a link to a report from the Congressional Budget Office on X confirming that the commission would aim to cut funding for a range of programs with lapsed funding authorization.

The CBO report included 491 such programs totaling about $516 billion. Most of that money goes to two dozen big-ticket items, including medical care for veterans, housing assistance vouchers for low-income renters, college Pell Grants, the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NASA's major initiatives.

The programs' funding authorizations have lapsed because they were established or renewed by legislation authorizing Congress to allocate funds for a set number of years. However, Congress still allocated funding to these programs during the annual budget process after that period ended, even though the original authorization expired.

"If the spending isn't authorized, then we shouldn't be spending it," Ramaswamy wrote on X on Thursday. "That shouldn't be controversial."

The above programs with at least $4 billion each in 2024 appropriations together total $391 billion, or about three-quarters of the $516 billion total. Some of the programs specifically highlighted by Musk and Ramaswamy in their op-ed involve much smaller sums, such as the $525 million in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $286 million for grants to organizations like Planned Parenthood for family planning services and education.

NASA's budget for space exploration, one of the programs that CBO identified as having a lapsed authorization, clocks in at about $7.7 billion. NASA's planned human moon lander, the first of which is contracted to be built by Elon Musk's SpaceX, is one of the major components of that program, according to a NASA 2024 budget request analysis from The Planetary Society.

This is not the first attempt to tackle unauthorized government spending. GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers introduced legislation in 2016 — the USA Act — which would sunset what she called "zombie government spending programs" in three years and establish a commission to review all mandatory spending programs.

"What all of this means is that too much of the federal government is on autopilot, and it is preventing the American people from exercising their authority to review, rethink, and possibly eliminate government programs," McMorris Rodgers wrote in a 2016 opinion piece.

Data from the Treasury Department showed that the US government spent a total of $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, with the highest amounts of spending allocated to the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury Department.

The implications of DOGE could be widespread if Musk and Ramaswamy fulfill their goals of eliminating government agencies, which would lead to layoffs for thousands of federal workers. The two commission leaders said in their opinion piece that impacted employees could be offered early retirement and severance payments to allow for a "graceful exit."

"Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE's goal is to help support their transition into the private sector," they wrote.