Topline
President-Elect Donald Trump has named billionaires Elon Musk, one of his biggest campaign supporters, and Vivek Ramaswamy, his one-time primary opponent, to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency”—giving Musk a role in his administration after Trump and the world’s richest person spoke on the campaign trail about working together.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks during a town hall for Donald Trump on Oct. 18, 2024.
Key Facts
The announcement comes months after Musk and Trump first started publicly floating the idea of a government efficiency position for the billionaire and more than a week after Trump won the election, kicking off intense speculation on what role exactly Musk would play in the new administration.
Musk is also expected to join Trump Wednesday at a House GOP conference meeting in Washington DC.
Trump and Musk grew closer over the course of the election as Musk poured more than $100 million into his campaign and started an online crusade to have him reelected, and they’ve spoken several times about a position for Musk in the Trump administration.
Musk was reportedly on the line last week when Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke over the phone in an unusual arrangement that signaled Musk may be intimately involved in the upcoming administration.
In declaring his presidential victory last we Donald Trump was quick to praise billionaire Elon Musk as a “super genius” after the Tesla founder and X owner donated more than $100 million of his personal money to Trump’s campaign: “Let me tell you we have a new star…a star is born, Elon.”
The praise from Trump came after months of heavy campaign spending and vocal support from Musk, who Trump has said will have a government position under his new administration.
Trump in September said if he wins reelection he will “create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” a plan first proposed by Musk, and said the world’s richest person has has agreed to head the task force under a Trump administration.
Musk first brought up the idea for a commission that would ensure “taxpayer’s money… is spent in a good way” during a conversation with the former president in August, which was live streamed on his social media platform, X.
After Trump’s announcement, Musk responded to a tweet about a Washington Post report that Trump is considering him for a role in auditing U.S. agencies and identifying government programs to cut, saying he “can’t wait” and that there is “a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go.”
In October, Trump told Fox News Musk is a “great business guy” and described his new role as “Secretary of Cost-Cutting.”
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What We Don’t Know
It’s unclear what responsibilities the “Department of Government Efficiency”—which has not yet been formed—will have. Trump says the department will be expected to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” and its work will wrap up no later than July 2026.
Key Background
Trump and Musk are first known to have met privately last year when they discussed a potential buyout of the Truth Social platform, according to The Washington Post. The New York Times reported the pair met again in March and Musk endorsed Trump for the presidency in July this year. That same month, Musk helped to start the pro-Trump America PAC, which spent over $169 million on the 2024 presidential race. Musk first appeared in-person to to support the former president at a rally in Butler, Penn., in October and spoke on stage at a campaign event at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27. Trump told supporters in his victory speech that Musk spent “two weeks in Philadelphia and different parts of Pennsylvania campaigning.”
Big Number
$118.6 million. That’s how much Musk poured into the America PAC between July and October, with $43.6 million in October alone. His efforts included daily $1 million giveaways to registered swing state voters who signed the PAC’s petition supporting free speech and gun rights.
Contra
Musk’s serving in a public position could be hampered due to his vast private business interests. Entrepreneurs looking to take government jobs usually divest their shares and holdings to avoid conflicts of interest, but Musk is unlikely to be able to divest his massive stakes in companies like Tesla, SpaceX and X without causing major market disruption. And, because his business interests touch so many sectors, he could find himself forced to recuse regularly to avoid the appearance of any conflict.
Tangent
Trump was often criticized in his first presidency for his own conflicts of interest after deciding not to divest his business empire before entering public office. The ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says he committed more than 3,400 violations while in office, including visits by foreign officials and political events held at Trump-owned properties, dozens of foreign trademarks granted to Trump businesses and more than 100 events by special interest groups held at Trump properties. A report from American Public Media found that more than half of Trump’s 20-person Cabinet during his presidency had engaged in “questionable or unethical conduct,” including in relation to their business holdings and investments.
Surprising Fact
The relationship between Musk and Trump has not always been an amicable one. In the lead up to the 2016 election, Musk said Trump was “not the right guy” to be president before going on to join—and later quit—two of the president’s business-advisory councils. In 2022, when Musk was attempting to buy Twitter, Trump called him a “bullshit artist.” He said Musk would never be able to buy Twitter, and said Musk claimed he’d never voted for a republican after privately telling Trump he voted for him before. In response, Musk said it was “time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.” At the time, he said Trump was too old to run for the presidency again in 2024 and said he was supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That same year, Musk reinstated Trump’s previously banned Twitter account.
Forbes Valuation
Musk, who founded Tesla, SpaceX and other companies, is ranked as the richest person in the world as of Wednesday with an estimated net worth of $311.3 billion, roughly $50 billion more than he was worth before Trump won the election. Trump has an estimated $5.5 billion net worth as of Wednesday thanks to his stakes in Truth Social’s parent company, the Trump Media and Technology Group, his real estate investments and other assets. Ramaswamy has a net worth of $1 billion.
Further Reading
