It’s a mission that couldn’t be more like Elon Musk. The “Manhattan Project of our time”, even prophesied Donald Trump, named after the secret research program which led to the creation of the atomic bomb during the Second World War. Alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and candidate in the Republican primary who stood out during his campaign for his aversion to the “deep state”, the founder of Tesla was appointed by the president-elect – inaugurated on January 20 – at the head of a future ministry responsible for drastically reducing public and federal spending.
To carry out this project, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were tasked by Donald Trump with piloting a new program: the “Department of Government Effectiveness”. The name owes nothing to chance: its acronym, Doge, openly recalls the favorite cryptocurrency of the founder of Tesla. Its objective will be to submit proposals to the American president to reduce the lifestyle of the American state. And this, no later than July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
To compose this Doge, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy chose to free themselves from current practices. The two billionaires have therefore decided to launch the recruitment process directly… on will review the best applications themselves. “We need revolutionaries with very high IQs, willing to work 80+ hours a week on unglamorous cost-cutting measures,” summed up the Doge’s X account. And all for…zero dollars. “Indeed, it will be tedious work, you will have to make a lot of enemies and the remuneration will be zero. What a good deal!”, quipped Elon Musk on his X account.
“We do things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will be outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we will not just write reports or cut ribbons,” Musk and Ramaswamy assured, in a more serious tone, in an article published in the. Wall Street Journal last November.
“A unique way to serve the country”
Despite these working conditions which appear unattractive, the Doge seems to find his audience. THE Wall Street Journal was able to interview several candidates who applied to join this ministry. Among them, we find many supporters of Donald Trump from the business world, sometimes at high levels of responsibility, and wishing to contribute their part to the revolution promised by the tandem formed by the two billionaires. For example, we find Sarah Armstrong, 55, assistant director of a company manufacturing electrical equipment, ready to give up her job and become a volunteer with Trump. “I think it’s a unique way to serve the country, and more importantly, the people,” she explains to the American business newspaper.
Or James Tagg, 26 years old and an analyst in an electrical infrastructure manufacturing company, who explains that he is “eagerly prepared to invest countless days and sleepless nights to realize this vision” with the WSJ. “I believe that America can reach its full potential with Doge leading the charge,” he says, while many candidates explain that they see this experience as an “unpaid internship”.
A limited scope of action
But do “unpaid interns” have the capacity to completely transform the structure of the American state? The Doge, not being a government agency, and which should act as an advisory body to the White House, could very quickly find itself limited. The vast majority of modifications to the budget must in fact be validated by the American Congress and the Senate. And even if the Republicans hold the majority there for the next two years, that will necessarily make any large-scale change much slower.
In addition, many expenses seem immovable: as recalled CNNnearly 60% of the federal government’s budget is notably intended for Social Security and social protection, popular expenses that Trump promised not to reverse during his campaign. 10% is also intended to repay the State debt, also with intangible expenses. Suffice it to say that the field of action is already much reduced.
Faced with this, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have a plan: attack the “deep state”, to understand the bureaucrats who, in their eyes, govern behind the backs of the Americans. “Most government spending and decisions to enforce laws are made not by the democratically elected president, or even his political representatives, but by millions of unelected and unappointed officials in government agencies, who considered protected from layoffs thanks to the protections of the civil service”, they target in their forum in the Wall Street Journal. The two men explain that they will rely “on existing legislation rather than the adoption of new laws” to decide on this public spending which they consider “undemocratic”.
A similar project under Reagan
But what are the expenses that will really be attacked? THE account of the Doge seems to give a first tone of what seems to be in the sights of Musk and Ramaswamy. “How the U.S. government spent your tax dollars in 2024: $7 million on various projects to study magic; $1,513,299 to use kittens in a study to analyze motion sickness; $419,470 to determine “if lonely rats seek out cocaine more frequently than happy rats, $123,000 to teach kids in Kyrgyzstan how to go viral on social media,” he posted last December 27. Figures coming from a report by a libertarian Republican senator, Rand Paul, but who does not hesitate to truncate part of reality in the service of his ideology. The first example cited is actually a grant for a museum children’s playground called the “Magic City Discovery Center” in the small town of Minot, North Dakota.
Even if Elon Musk considers that these kinds of subsidies should be cut, they represent only a tiny part of the 2,000 billion savings – or a third of the annual spending of the American federal government – that the Tesla boss boasts of be able to find. Vivek Ramaswamy, during his campaign, promised to close the federal Ministry of Education, the FBI and even the IRS, the federal agency that collects a large number of taxes. Measurements which slightly overlook research on rats or kittens.
Above all, another example also seems to temper the revolutionary nature of this project. In 1982, after his election to the White House on the promise of “draining the bureaucratic swamp”, Ronald Reagan announced the launch of the “Grace Commission”. The objective of the latter was to bring together entrepreneurs and business leaders so that they could develop proposals to drastically reduce the lifestyle of the American state. The result, according to the majority of experts: none of the more than 2,500 measures that they had recommended in their report presented to the Senate had ultimately been translated into concrete terms by the presidential administration…