President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said on Sunday that some federal agencies will be “deleted outright” and that contractors may see “massive cuts” in what they can charge when the incoming administration takes office next year.
Last week, Trump named former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead the presidential advisory commission, DOGE. Their work must be completed no later than July 4, 2026, Trump said in his statement.
Ramaswamy told Fox Business on Sunday that “there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse right now.”
“Federal contractors are really exploiting the federal government,” he said.
When Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked him whether entire government agencies will be closed, he responded in the affirmative.
“We expect mass reductions. We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,“ Ramaswamy said. ”We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts of all federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government. So, yes, we expect all of the above.”
Will entire agencies be deleted? Answer: yes. pic.twitter.com/QPe5VNGDhr
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 17, 2024
As a presidential candidate, Ramaswamy had called for totally eliminating or restructuring of several agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Elaborating on Fox, Ramaswamy said that “failures of the executive branch need to be addressed.”
“Unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state that was created through executive action” are running the government, he said, which needs to be fixed by the executive branch.
“This is about restoring self-governance and accountability in America as well. Elected leaders, if they make the wrong decisions, voters have a great choice. You can vote them out and remove them,” Ramaswamy said.
“Most of the people making these decisions from health care to the Department of Defense are failing on effectiveness because they have no accountability. Historically, it’s been the view of many scholars to say that those people could not even be fired. Now, we take a different view with the environment the Supreme Court has given us in recent years, and we’re going to use that in a pretty extensive way to move quickly.”
DOGE will not be an official government agency, meaning that both Ramaswamy and Musk are not considered Cabinet members in the incoming Trump administration and therefore not subject to the Senate confirmation.
Both Ramaswamy and Musk, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined the president-elect at a UFC event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Gabbard is Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, while Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
On Thursday, DOGE’s account on social platform X, which is owned by Musk, posted a job listing announcement that is calling for individuals to work 80 or more hours per week ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
Musk and Ramaswamy both threw their support behind Trump this year.
