Musk's bold plans for 'Department of Government Efficiency' face roadblocks

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are set to take the reins of the brand-new "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) under President-elect Trump — a panel with bold ambitions of slashing government costs and restructuring federal agencies. 

However, it is likely to face numerous roadblocks in its efforts to effect change in the next administration given its seemingly advisory role, experts said. 

“There's the executive branch that might be in their way. The Congress might be in their way. The Constitution is a bit of an obstacle,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum. 

“Other than that, clear sailing,” he told The Hill. 

Trump announced Tuesday evening that the pair of tech entrepreneurs would jointly lead the panel, which will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government.”  

It will partner with the White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “drive large scale structural reform,” with its work set to conclude by July 4, 2026, Trump said in a statement. 

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time,” the president-elect said. 

The panel created an official government account on the social platform X on Wednesday, writing, “Working overtime to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!” 

Musk and Trump previously discussed the prospect of a cost-cutting panel during the campaign, as the tech titan threw his support behind the Republican candidate with multimillion-dollar contributions to his own pro-Trump super PAC and amplified Trump’s message on X.

While DOGE is now set to become a reality, experts are skeptical about what it will actually be able to accomplish. 

“It sounds to me like an outside commission that will give OMB recommendations on what they think should be done to improve government efficiency, and as such its powers are entirely advisory,” Holtz-Eakin said. 

“They don't have any authority to do anything other than say, ‘We think this will be good,’” he said. “Evidently, Mr. Musk has a lot of free time, and if he wants to waste it, that's fine.” 

Government commissions like DOGE typically have a large staff and budget and produce a formal report with recommendations for Congress, explained Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. 

“But since this was not created by Congress, we don't know what its authority is and what status it has,” West said. “I mean, any American can make suggestions on ways to cut the government budget, but the question is anybody going to pay serious attention to this?” 

Any major budget cuts would have to be approved by Congress, he noted. While Republicans have secured control of both chambers, they are likely to have a narrow majority in the House and lack a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. 

“It's not clear that any draconian measure is going to see the light of day,” West said. 

However, Musk’s close relationship with Trump is notable. The billionaire spent election night with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago, watching the results roll in, and Trump thanked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO in his victory speech, calling him a “star.” 

In the days since the election, Musk has reportedly remained at Mar-a-Lago with the president-elect, sitting in on meetings and phone calls, including with world leaders, according to The New York Times. 

Musk also joined Trump at a Wednesday meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill, where the president-elect joked, “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him.” 

Trump met with Biden later that day, marking his first visit to the Oval Office since leaving the presidency in 2021.

“Musk has the ear of the president, so people have to take it seriously just for that reason,” West told The Hill. 

Republicans will also have two shots at passing major legislation through budget reconciliation, which could give Trump and the GOP several chances to enact sweeping changes without having to clear a Senate filibuster.

Musk had said that much of DOGE's focus will be on what the panel considers egregious misuses of federal spending.

"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" Musk posted Tuesday night.

"We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining," Musk continued.

Shortly after the idea was floated earlier this year, ethics experts and former government officials raised concerns that Musk holding dual roles in his tech companies and the Trump administration could be a conflict of interest.  

Tesla and SpaceX have contracts worth billions of dollars with the same federal agencies he is likely to work with in his advisory role. This could risk the panel’s objectivity and fairness, some experts argued.

Even the panel's name, DOGE, is a nod to a cryptocurrency often touted by Musk: Dogecoin, which riffs off a mid-2010's meme featuring a Shiba Inu. Dogecoin's value was up more than 90 percent over the past week as of Wednesday afternoon.

“Handing the keys of government to those looking to profit from our government is extremely dangerous and a massive conflict of interest,” Zach Moller, economic program director at Third Way, a center-left think tank, said in a statement. “The idea of a Musk-run government efficiency commission is a farce and will lead to more waste, fraud, and rampant abuse of political power.” 

“Americans would be right to suspect that Musk would use his newfound government powers to throw a lifeline to his teetering companies,” he added.  

Experts further pointed to Musk’s controversies and legal challenges at his other companies and how this could be a hint of his leadership style.  

“Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack in his new 'czar' position,” Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, wrote Wednesday.  

Musk has faced a number of legal challenges over his companies' conduct, including their hiring and termination practices, pay structure and product performance.  

While calling Musk a “brilliant entrepreneur and a tech visionary,” Moller said the billionaire’s companies are “deeply troubled and mismanaged.” 

Musk has not fully laid out whether his roles in his other companies will change with the new position, though he reposted one user who said Tesla investors should be “reassured” by the group’s position outside of government and that it is limited to 21 months.  

“Typically, with a government created commission members have to respect conflict of interest rules, and it's not clear how Musk is going to comply with that, or what the requirements would be since this seems to be an ad hoc operation,” West noted. 

“It allows him to avoid ethics rules, but it doesn't put him in a strong position to change public policy,” he added.