Elon Musk and government efficiency panel will follow recent Supreme Court rulings that they say can be used to take power away from federal agencies to reduce rules that are unnecessary, costly and inefficient. Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and the founder of biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences, have been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a panel of outside advisers to make efficiency recommendations. The two wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the panel on Wednesday.
Many current federal regulations may exceed the legislative power granted by Congress, they said, citing two Supreme Court cases – 2022′s West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and this year’s Loper Bright v. Raimondo. The panel will look for such regulations, they added.
With an electoral mandate and the 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, Musk and Ramaswamy said, the panel has an opportunity to enact substantial structural downsizing within the federal government.
The panel will give its list of regulations to President Trump, “who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission,” they wrote.
Musk and Ramaswamy say they can reduce federal spending by $500 billion by cutting expenditures that have not been authorized by Congress or are being used in ways that Congress did not intend, citing $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $1.5 billion for international organizations and nearly $300 million given to groups like Planned Parenthood.
They stated that a partnership with the Trump transition team was underway to hire a team of “small-government crusaders,” which will work with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The authors, who want to greatly reduce the size of the federal workforce, also suggested that requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in workers leaving their jobs.