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- Elon Musk will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to cut federal spending.
- Musk said on X that he'll launch a "leaderboard" to track spending and crowdsource ideas for cuts.
- Some business leaders are offering their two cents, with one taking a dig at the USDA.
Elon Musk has officially landed the role as co-leader of the new Department of Government Efficiency, and he's already crowdsourcing for suggestions. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday evening that Musk will head the department alongside the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, with the goal of curbing government spending.
In a post on X, Musk promised that the DOGE — named after the cryptocurrency — will publish all of its activity online to ensure "maximum transparency" and will "have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars."
All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!
We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb… https://t.co/1c0bAlxmY0
As of Wednesday morning, the post had garnered more than 26 million views, 18,000 comments, and 50,000 retweets. Business leaders were among those reacting to the news and, in some cases, offering suggestions.
Ryan Petersen, CEO of the supply-chain management company Flexport, responded on X asking where to submit programs to cut.
"The US Department of Agriculture runs a foreign language school. I took a Chinese class there. Why does the department of agriculture need to teach Chinese? We have community colleges for that right?" Petersen wrote. The USDA does not offer typical foreign language classes but provides access to language-learning tools through an internal platform.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and an outspoken Trump supporter, reposted Musk's announcement of a leaderboard on X, writing, "It's becoming exciting again to be an American." Shaun Maguire, another outspoken Trump supporter and a partner at the venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital, retweeted the president-elect's announcement that Musk would head DOGE and called it "one of the greatest things I've ever read."
The responses to Musk's announcement and general appointment as head of DOGE stretched across the partisan tech aisle. Aaron Levie, CEO of the cloud computing company Box, who endorsed Harris, responded to Trump's announcement of the agency on X.
"There's a significant opportunity to make the government more capable of delivering for Americans, and ironically it will actually cost less not more," he wrote.
Other Democrats aren't so keen on the idea — Sen. Elizabeth Warren poked fun at the department in her own X post.
"The Office of Government Efficiency is off to a great start with split leadership: two people to do the work of one person," she wrote. "Yeah, this seems REALLY efficient."
The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year, nine-tenths of which went to federal programs, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Almost one-quarter of the budget funds health-insurance programs, like Medicare and Medicaid. Another 21% goes toward Social Security, with 13% going toward defense.
It remains unclear how expansive Musk's government role will be and how much he will be able to reshape the budget in his business-friendly image.
Trump's transition team and Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.