Elon Musk Outlines DOGE Department: ‘Entrepreneurs Not Politicians’ Will Cut Costs

Key Takeaways

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
• DOGE will recommend regulations for President Trump to repeal.
• The department aims to dramatically shrink the federal workforce.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have outlined their plan to drastically shrink the U.S. government under the banner of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

In an Opinion article  published in the Wall Street Journal, the two men argued that as “entrepreneurs, not politicians,” they are ideally placed to shake up the government from the outside.

Musk and Ramaswamy Flesh Out Plans

While Musk first floated the idea for DOGE during the final weeks of the election campaign, the Journal article offers the most detailed vision for the department yet.

To staff the department, Musk and Ramaswamy said they are recruiting “a lean team of small-government crusaders” to repeal “thousands” of regulations.

While both men have previously toyed with the idea of deleting entire agencies, doing so would require Congressional approval.

Implicitly acknowledging this challenge, the strategy put forward in the Journal relies on executive actions to unilaterally roll back swathes of government bureaucracy.

The Legal Argument for Deregulation

Touching on the legal arguments DOGE will use to justify its regulatory bonfire, Musk and Ramaswamy cited two recent Supreme Court decisions that curtailed the power of federal agencies.

In the first case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices sided with the state, ruling that the EPA cannot set power plant emission limits.

Crucially, the decision determined that government agencies can’t set rules that rest on questions of major economic and political significance.

In the second, Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine, revoking the need for courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of the law.

“Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.

“When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress,” they added.

Mass Layoffs Incoming

The corollary to DOGE’s deregulatory bonanza will be a massive reduction in the number of federal employees needed to investigate, enforce and litigate all those rules.

As Musk and Ramaswamy put it: “a drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy.”

While the Administrative Procedures Act prohibits presidents from firing federal workers for political reasons, “the statute allows for ‘reductions in force’ that don’t target specific employees,” the two men observed.

How Much Money Can DOGE Save?

At its heart, DOGE is a cost-cutting exercise and Musk has previously said he plans to shave $2 trillion from the federal budget.

In the latest article, however, he highlighted a more modest goal: “$500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended”.

That’s not to say the larger ambition isn’t still in play. However, $500 billion is what Musk thinks he can save without an Act of Congress, as would be required to cut social security or other entitlement programs.