On November 19, 2024, US President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watched the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Reuters
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, announced on Wednesday that U.S. President Trump will visit Capitol Hill on December 5 to discuss government reforms with Republican congressional leaders.
Johnson said entrepreneurs would “discuss major reform ideas with Republican lawmakers to achieve regulatory scrapping, administrative cuts and cost savings.”
President-elect Donald Trump appointed Musk and Ramaswamy as co-chairs of a new external advisory committee they are calling the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE). While details about the group are still emerging, its primary role appears to be to consult with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president’s annual budget request to Congress.
Musk and Ramaswamy laid out a broad set of goals for the plan, including massive cuts to the federal workforce and shutdowns numerous federal agencies and regulatory agencies.
They also want to eliminate “spending without congressional authorization.” they wrote In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. They would also seek to cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, several international organizations and women’s health care provider Planned Parenthood.
On Wednesday, Musk also suggested that the White House should be “removed” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency.
However, most of these proposals require congressional approval because the House of Representatives controls the allocation of federal funds to agencies.
The planned meeting next week is the latest sign that congressional Republican leaders are taking Musk and Ramaswamy seriously.
However, even the best efforts of congressional Republican leaders may not be enough to implement many of these ideas.
As of Wednesday, the results of several House elections were still up in the air, with Johnson still on track to win one of the narrowest majorities for either party in decades.
Given how dispersed the federal workforce is across the country’s 435 congressional districts, the prospect of putting federal employees in any one district out of work is likely to be met with resistance from that district’s congressional representatives.
Spokespeople for Johnson and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Musk is the world’s richest man and the head of SpaceX, Tesla and social media platform X.
