Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, two technology billionaires with an anti-government axe to grind, aim to cut $500bn from the federal budget. They took to Capitol Hill on Thursday to explain their intentions to Republican lawmakers. But how, exactly, is the “Department of Government Efficiency” supposed to work?
For starters, it is not actually a department of anything in the government.
“Only Congress can create a department,” said David C Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown and an expert in administrative procedure. The organization proposed by Musk and Ramaswamy would instead be a government advisory committee, which would only have the power to make recommendations to Congress about government waste and inefficiency. Vladeck said: “Ironically, the government already has that position, which is part of the Office of Management and Budget.”
Off the bat, the “Doge” effort appears to be duplicative effort. Musk met with Mike Johnson, John Thune and other Republican leaders, and highlighted recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office – an independent agency led by the comptroller general – that could reduce the federal budget by as much as $200bn annually, if implemented.
Eugene Dodaro has held the comptroller general position since 2008, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. The position requires a presidential appointment that is subject to confirmation by the Senate. Neither Musk nor Ramaswamy would be subject to legislative questioning in a confirmation hearing if Doge is an extra-governmental advisory committee, which may be one reason it has been so proposed.
Nonetheless, Johnson called the initiative a “historic moment”, praising the two as “innovators” poised to streamline government operations.
Even though the Doge advisory committee will not be a government agency, it will still fall under the auspices of federal law. The Federal Advisory Committee Act governs how it will operate. The first step requires Musk and Ramaswamy to present a charter to the president, Vladeck said.
“The Advisory Committee Act provides that most of the deliberations of the advisory committee must be made public,” Vladeck said. “To the extent that Elon Musk wants to do all of this in the dark, you really can’t do that as an advisory committee.”
Musk and Ramaswamy have yet to present a charter for the committee to the public, if not the president.
One key element of the advisory committee act is that committee rules “contain appropriate provisions to assure that the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest, but will instead be the result of the advisory committee’s independent judgment”.
Musk, who owns or manages many companies with large government contracts and that depend on a favorable regulatory environment for their profitability, has special interests at stake. That’s not enough to prevent Musk from chairing the committee, though it may require him to recuse himself when budget questions about Nasa related to his SpaceX company emerge, Vladeck said.
“It’s not going to be a committee of two,” he said. “It’s going to be a committee of 20 or 30 people. And again, all he’s doing is making a recommendation, and if there’s any fiscal responsibilities it would be up to Congress.”
James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, is reportedly creating a parallel Doge subcommittee to act on the recommendations made by the efficiency effort. The subcommittee chair is set to be Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Doge’s bipartisan potential received a boost when the Democratic congressman Jared Moskowitz joined the Doge caucus, emphasizing that improving efficiency did not have to mean cutting services.
“I will join the congressional Doge caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue. I’ve been clear that there are ways we can reorganize our government to make it work better for the American people,” Moskowitz said.
Musk and Ramaswamy laid out their vision for the efficiency effort in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month. Their initial stated targets are the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, international organizations receiving US grants, and political out-groups that receive federal funding such as Planned Parenthood.
But they are also contemplating a broad reduction of the federal workforce. The pair are already clamoring for government agencies to demand federal workers return to the office and end generous work-from-home programs.
Senator Joni Ernst echoed that sentiment in a 60-page report released on Thursday.
“Taxpayers are being charged more than $182,000 per employee a year to cover operating and maintenance expenses at the Department of Labor headquarters,” the report states. “On an average day, fewer than 500 employees are reporting to work at the building which costs nearly $60m a year to rent, operate, and maintain.”
Ernst’s argument is that there’s no concrete connection between allowing federal employees to work from home regularly and improved output. Meanwhile, the federal government spends billions to maintain office space for people who are never there.
So, either fill the offices with workers, or get rid of them, she said.
One corollary to this strategy is that many federal employees – who have robust federal civil service protection for their jobs – may quit if ordered to return to an office, allowing Congress and the president to sidestep a wave of litigation and potential compensation for mass federal firings.
However, these areas account for a small fraction of the overall budget. Most federal spending is mandatory spending: Congress must change fundamental bedrock laws to reduce spending on social security (24% of the budget), Medicare (14%), and veterans’ benefits (3.5%), all of which Trump has vowed not to touch.
Even discretionary spending is politically sensitive. About $1.6tn in discretionary spending for fiscal year 2024 is divided between $842bn for defense programs and $758bn for non-defense activities, which include efforts such as federal law enforcement and air traffic control.
American support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the retooling of the navy and Marine Corps to face potential conflict with China make cuts to defense fraught. But fiscal watchdogs such as Senator Elizabeth Warren may be willing to make common cause with Republicans if it means shaving inefficiencies in Pentagon spending.
Brandon Arnold of the National Tax Union noted that refusing to address “sacred cows” such as defense limits meaningful progress. For example, Pentagon audits have uncovered waste in weapons systems and procurement processes. However, previous GOP-led efforts to reduce spending have often fallen short.
As Musk said: “We need to make sure we spend the public’s money well.” Musk has given 4 July 2026 as a sunset date for Doge recommendations.
