On Tuesday night, President-elect Donald Trump appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, also known as D.O.GE.
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement on X, calling the move essential to the “Save America” movement.
Specifically, the agency’s goals include dismantling unnecessary government structures, targeting excess spending, reforming existing agencies, and eliminating what the former president and Musk have dubbed waste and fraud within the $6.5 trillion federal budget.
Its ultimate aim is to create a smaller, more accountable government focused on efficiency and entrepreneurship, per the statement.
In a post to X on Tuesday evening, Musk said all actions of the agency "will be posted online for maximum transparency."
"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know," Musk tweeted. "We will also have a leaderboard for [the] most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining."
Trump first floated the idea of Musk leading a government efficiency commission to audit federal agencies during a speech to the Economic Club of New York in September.
“This would unlock tremendous prosperity for America,” Musk said at the time.
President Donald J. Trump announces the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — headed by @elonmusk and @VivekGRamaswamy pic.twitter.com/Ya2o45qlV8
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) November 13, 2024
According to Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency will complete its work by July 4, 2026, a date he emphasized as essential, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans,” Trump said.
Good boy
Dogecoin (DOGE), a crypto often loosely tied to Musk’s social media musings, rose 6% ahead of the announcement before paring back gains.
Like the rest of the crypto market, Dogecoin has gone wild since Trump won the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. On Sunday, Dogecoin hit a three-year high, rising 20% to $0.27. Dogecoin’s all-time high was on May 8, 2021, when the seminal meme coin reached $0.73.
Doge is trading at $0.38, down 9.3% from its earlier Tuesday peak of $0.43. It's still up more than 10% over the last 24 hours and 112% on the week, CoinGecko data shows.
Other DOGE-themed meme coins also surged after Musk’s appointment, with a separate DOGE token rising 78.6% to $0.37, according to CoinGecko. The token had already risen 291% the previous week.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair