United States President-elect Donald Trump has named tech magnate Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as his picks to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a new body he plans to establish once he returns to the White House.

“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 Tuesday.

“Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending.”

Trump added that, under his plan, Musk and Ramaswamy would conclude their work by July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America,” Trump said.

A campaign promise

The proposed department appears to have been inspired by a conversation Trump had on the campaign trail with Musk, one of his most prominent supporters.

On August 13, the two men sat down for a two-hour live broadcast on Musk’s social media platform X, where the billionaire pitched Trump on the idea of forming a new “commission” to crack down on government waste.

“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump replied. “I need an Elon Musk. I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts.”

Trump later revisited the idea on the campaign trail, including at a September appearance before the New York Economic Club.

“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said at the time.

It is unclear how the new department will function once it is established. Tuesday’s statement indicated that Ramaswamy and Musk would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government”.

Critics note that independent nonpartisan watchdogs already exist within the government to ensure efficiency and conduct audits, including the Government Accountability Office.

Rewarding Trump’s supporters

Trump’s announcement on Tuesday, however, seems poised to reward two of his most prominent supporters from the private sector.

Musk, a billionaire originally from South Africa, is the founder of the electric car company Tesla, the owner of X and the leader of SpaceX, a rocket-building company.

Ramaswamy, meanwhile, is the founder of a pharmaceutical company. Earlier this year, he competed against Trump in the Republican primary season, only to drop out after finishing fourth in January’s Iowa caucus. He immediately endorsed Trump after suspending his campaign.

Musk’s endorsement came months later, after Trump faced an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

Posting a video of a blood-streaked Trump, Musk wrote in the aftermath, “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Musk has since donated millions of dollars to Trump’s election campaign and made public appearances with him, including at a follow-up rally in Butler.

Since Trump won the November 5 presidential election, Musk has also been a constant presence at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

DOGE, the acronym for the newly created department, is also the name of the cryptocurrency that Musk promotes.

Drastic change

Since his first successful presidential bid in 2016, Trump has pledged to slim down the government and “drain the swamp” – his catchphrase for ridding Washington, DC, of unnecessary bureaucracy and corruption.

In Tuesday’s announcement, Trump teased “drastic change” in his second term. He has already pledged to shut down the Department of Education, which distributes federal aid, cracks down on discrimination in schools and publishes research about educational attainment.

A future Department of Government Efficiency, Trump explained, would partner with the White House to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.”

Musk at one point suggested he could find more than $2 trillion in savings if given the power to review federal functions – a sum equivalent to nearly a third of the government’s total annual spending.

To illustrate the scale and importance of his proposed department, Trump drew a comparison between the new body and a World War II-era programme that developed the atomic bomb.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Musk was quoted in Trump’s press release celebrating the department’s imminent creation.

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” he said.