US President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, USA, November 19, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Via Reuters
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will visit Capitol Hill on Dec. 5 to discuss government reform with Republican congressional leaders, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced Wednesday.
Johnson said business leaders would discuss with Republican lawmakers “big reform ideas to achieve regulatory repeals, administrative reductions and cost savings.”
President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk and Ramaswamy co-chairs of a new external advisory commission they are calling the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While details about the panel remain unclear, it appears that it would serve primarily to consult with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president's annual budget request to Congress.
Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out broad goals for the project, including massive cuts to federal staff and the closure of numerous federal agencies and regulators.
They also want to “eliminate spending not authorized by Congress,” they wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial. They would also seek to cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, several international organizations and women's health provider Planned Parenthood.
On Wednesday, Musk also suggested that the White House should “cut” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency.
However, the lion's share of these proposals require congressional approval because the House of Representatives controls the allocation of federal funds to agencies.
The meeting scheduled for next week is the latest indication that Republican leaders in Congress are taking Musk and Ramaswamy seriously.
But even the best efforts of Republican leaders in Congress may not be enough to implement many of these ideas.
With the results of some general elections still pending on Wednesday, Johnson is still on track to achieve one of the slimmest majorities of either party in several decades.
Given how widely dispersed federal workers are across the nation's 435 congressional districts, the prospect of putting a district's federal workers out of work would likely face resistance from that district's representatives in Congress.
Spokespeople for Johnson and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Musk is the richest person in the world and the head of SpaceX, Tesla and the social media platform X. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, is a former Republican presidential candidate.
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