Musk-led ‘DOGE’ pledges to remove regulations made by ‘unelected bureaucrats’ News
Kim Shiflett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Musk-led ‘DOGE’ pledges to remove regulations made by ‘unelected bureaucrats’

Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said Wednesday that their new government efficiency panel will identify “thousands” of regulations made by “unelected bureaucrats” for president-elect Donald Trump to eliminate.

Trump appointed Musk and Ramaswamy to lead the newly-announced “Department of Government Efficiency” (ironically designated by the acronym DOGE, evoking Musk’s meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin) last week. DOGE’s stated purpose is to streamline government responsibilities and increase efficiency. Musk and Ramaswamy said they plan to achieve these goals by cutting the federal government down in size.

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy said that DOGE’s “North Star for reform” will be the Constitution and that they plan to work with legal experts and government agencies and focus on two recent Supreme Court rulings: Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which held that federal courts may no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of law, overturning the Chevron Doctrine, and West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which requires federal agencies to impose major economic or policy regulations only with Congressional approval.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that they will apply these decisions to federal regulations and provide Trump with a list of regulations for review and rescission. They allege that rather than executive overreach, they will in fact be correcting executive overreach of prior administrations. They have also pledged a significant reduction in the federal workforce and a reduction in expenditures including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, grants to international organizations, and funding for Planned Parenthood.

Ramaswamy said Sunday on Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter) that all federal agencies will be “deleted” in DOGE’s process of cutting down the federal government. Many observers have expressed concern over DOGE’s plan to eliminate substantial government entities and regulations. It is unclear whether DOGE will remain an advisory panel or become a government entity, which would require approval from Congress.

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