Elon Musk wants to fire federal officials en masse in the US

Musk and Ramaswamy thus presented in “WSJ” the action plan of the “Department of State Performance” (DOGE), an informal body that they are to lead as “external volunteers”. Supporting Donald Trump businessmen argue in the text that as a result of two decisions made by the conservative-dominated government Supreme Court depriving regulatory powers of executive power agencies (including environmental regulations), many of the existing rules introduced by them should be eliminated. “This is anti-democratic and directly contrary to the vision of the Founding Fathers. It imposes enormous direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Fortunately, we have a historic opportunity to address this problem. On November 5, voters overwhelmingly elected Donald Trump with a mandate for radical change, and they deserve it.” wrote the heads of DOGE.

They announced that they intend, together with experts and lawyers employed within individual agencies, to present Donald Trump with a list of thousands of regulations that he would invalidate by issuing a regulation without the consent of Congress. They added that by abolishing bureaucratic rules and taking away the agency's right to create them, there would be no justification for retaining many federal officials, and mass layoffs should be proportional to the scale of the “drastic” deregulation. “DOGE intends to work with agency appointees to determine the minimum number of employees required for the agency to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily required functions,” they wrote. They argue that the law and the Supreme Court's decisions allow mass firings of officials without congressional approval. They announced that they also intend to force officials to leave their jobs by eliminating telework and moving offices from Washington to other places in the country. Although they do not specify the number of officials they intend to dismiss, Ramaswamy has in the past called for getting rid of 3/4 of federal employees. Musk, in turn, promised that DOGE's activities would contribute to cutting spending by $2 trillion (almost 1/3 of the entire annual budget), although most experts doubt this possibility.

Musk and Ramaswamy also announce cuts in unnecessary expenses, including: on international organizations. “We are prepared for an onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect victory (…) There is no better birthday present for our nation on its 250th anniversary than providing a federal government that would make our Founders happy,” wrote the DOGE heads. The creation of a “department”, the acronym of which refers to the Internet meme i cryptocurrencies with the same name, announced by Donald Trump during the election campaign. Similar initiatives to slim down the state and reduce expenses were undertaken, among others, by: during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. The former's actions led to a reduction of 300,000. federal jobs. In turn, the so-called Grace's committee – led by businessman J. Peter Grace – made recommendations to over 2,500. reforms, most of which were never implemented.