File picture of Elon Musk with Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday (November 12, 2024) Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

Mr. Trump said their work would conclude by July 4, 2026, adding that a smaller and more efficient government would be a “gift” to the country on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The appointments reward two Trump supporters from the private sector.

Mr. Musk leads electric car company Tesla, social media platform X and rocket company SpaceX, while Mr. Ramaswamy is the founder of a pharmaceutical company who ran for the Republican presidential nomination against Mr. Trump and then threw his support behind the former president after dropping out.

Mr. Musk gave millions of dollars to support Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and publicly appeared with him. Mr. Trump had said he would offer Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, a role in his administration promoting government efficiency.

The acronym of the new department — DOGE — coincides with the name of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin that Musk promotes.

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” Mr. Musk said, according to Mr. Trump’s statement, which called the new government initiative “potentially ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” referring to the U.S. plan to build the atomic bomb that helped end World War Two.

Tesla and SpaceX Chief Elon Musk reinstated former United States President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter, now X, in November 2022, after he bought the microblogging platform for a whopping $43 billion. Mr Trump’s account was reinstated nearly two years after he was banned following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. However, the former President has not been active on the platform and keeps his supporters updated with his own social media network- Truth Social.

Recently, a user on X posted that “it’s time for @realDonaldTrump to return to X”. The post caught the attention of the billionaire who replied to the post and said, “Yes.”

Since being shared, Mr Musk’s post caught the attention of several users who had mixed reactions to the same.

“I don’t think he can. He has billions on the line with Truth Social,” said a user.

Another user commented, “I hope you talked to him about it, @elonmusk !”

“It is time for his return,” added a person.

“The return will be epic,” said a user.

“I don’t think he should!” said a person.

An X user noted, “He can’t, that would undermine his own platform, he’ll probably just repost Truth Social statements here.”

Meanwhile, Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after putting the decision up to a poll on the micro-blogging website. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Mr Musk posted, shortly after the 24-hour poll on his account ended. More than 15 million people – out of 237 million daily users – voted on the poll. While 51.8 per cent voted in favour of reinstating Mr Trump’s account, 48.2 per cent voted against it. 

Donald Trump had more than 88 million users when his account was suspended. Previously, he had stated that he would not return to the popular platform but would instead remain on Truth Social, launched after he was banned from Twitter. 

Appearing via video at a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Mr Trump said he welcomed Mr Musk’s poll, and was a fan of the man himself, but appeared to reject any return. “I do like him… you know, he’s a character and again, I like characters,” he said, adding, “He did put up a poll and it was very overwhelming… but I have something called… Truth Social.”

As to whether he would return to the platform, he said, “I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it.”