president-elect Donald Trump has tapped Elon Musk and former GOP rival the ramaswami to lead an effort to cut government spending and streamline bureaucracy under his administration it’s called the department of government efficiency or Doge an apparent reference to Dogecoin a cryptocurrency that musk often promotes online Trump says it would be an outside government entity and end its work by July 4th 2026 both those things are important because there’s Federal conflict of interest laws but if it turns into what’s known as a federal advisory committee which would be unpaid and has a time limit the pair wouldn’t need to divest or publicly disclose their assets still both businessmen would be subject to Federal ethics laws requiring them to recuse themselves from any decisions that could impact their business Holdings musk has set a goal of $2 trillion in spending cuts although it’s unclear in what time frame a Bloomberg analysis found that the US federal government spent $6.75 trillion last fiscal year alone the bulk of which was for social security health care defense and Veterans Benefits leading to question on which programs might get cut Trump has pledged to eliminate the Department of Education turning control of policy and funding back to the States musk is reportedly interested in eliminating Medicare fraud musk has promised transparency and while Congress doesn’t need to approve of these roles they do need to approve of any spending cuts which means that these decisions won’t be made unilaterally