Elon Musk's New 'doge' Role Under Trump: What to Expect

There's a lot of details remaining to be filled in here. But what we do know is that this Department of Government efficiency may be a little bit more like a presidential commission or something a little bit more outside government rather than like an actual setting up of a new, you know, cabinet-level department.

But it is very clear that Donald Trump is putting a lot of purchase into this. You know, there's even a very symbolic deadline of July 4th, 2026, to come with recommendations for what to do. Musk has made very, very big promises about what he thinks can be cut out of the government. In fact, some of the totals are quite large.

I mean, we've been hearing things like $2 trillion. Now, if that's over a ten-year window, there are ways that you can, you know, sort of figure out how to spread that around. If that's in a one-year window. That's more than the entirety of U.S. discretionary spending. And it gets you into mandatory spending, which is things like Social Security, Medicare, etc., like that.

So. So we really are talking about quite a sizable amount of money that would be at stake here. It's also worth mentioning that Elon Musk has an awful lot of business before the federal government. He is a fairly substantial contractor through his various companies. And so it will be interesting to see how his policies navigate that as well.

Hmm. Absolutely. I mean, sweeping goals for this, as you say, not necessarily a department, but this new efficiency drive. What about the other big names? Pete Hegseth, who's an Army veteran, is a Fox News personality. He's been put in charge of the Pentagon. What sort of signal does that send? Well, it's going to go to the point that Donald Trump wants loyalists, right? He wants people that he knows, that he likes, and that he thinks there's a phrase that's used often about someone who looks like they're out of central casting.

Pete Hegseth looks like he's, you know, out of central casting for a role like this, some might say. But this is somebody who has had, you know, Trump's back four for quite a while. He does have military experience of his own.

But the primary way that most people know of him is through his media role with Fox News. And so that has had a little bit of disquiet among some in the Pentagon space. There had been other people who had been mooted for this position who maybe had a little bit more experience in the defense management sector.

But the name it happens to be now, if you look throughout, you know, some of the rest of the president elect's cabinet as it's coming together and his top people who are coming together in the national security space, you do find a little bit more in the way of experience there. You know, one of the names that has been talked about for secretary of state is Marco Rubio.

He's expected to get that position according to multiple, multiple reports. He's a Florida senator, noted Chinahawk, also noted hawk on Cuba, Venezuela, and some other places like that. And that's a thread that we see running through Trump's administration as it sort of is getting put together.

The other thread we see through right now is that there are a lot of very ferocious defenders of Israel who are being appointed at all points here. And so that is another through line, which I don't think is particularly unexpected, given Trump's own comments on the Israel-Hamas situation.