Musk, Ramaswamy Meet With Top Republicans on Capitol Hill

We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

The two have been chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to lead government financial reforms through a new advisory board.

WASHINGTON—Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5, where they met with several high-profile Republicans in both chambers of Congress.

Musk and Ramaswamy, after being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), will focus on cutting both spending and regulations.

DOGE is technically only an advisory board, meaning it will have limited authority on its own. Given Congress’s control of the federal purse strings, a good relationship with lawmakers will likely be essential to Musk and Ramaswamy carrying out their mandate to majorly reform government finance.

During the visit, Musk attended meetings with the two most powerful Republicans in Congress: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

Around 2:00 p.m. ET, Musk and Ramaswamy met with Johnson.

In brief comments ahead of the meeting, Johnson told reporters, “This is an important day, it’s the beginning of a journey.”

“We have long lamented the size and scope of the government, that it is has grown too large,” Johnson said, emphasizing his enthusiastic support for the idea of the DOGE. “Government is too big, it does too many things, and it does almost nothing well.”

DOGE, Johnson said, would help result in a government that is “more responsive … more efficient, and … leaner.”

Leaving a meeting earlier the same morning with Thune, Musk, accompanied by his toddler-age son, largely avoided interacting with the press.

He eventually responded briefly to a question on whether he would support cuts to defense spending, saying “I think we just need to make sure we spend the public’s money well.”

Musk has expressed openness to defense cuts, telling political commentator Cenk Uygur he could offer suggestions to reduce the size of the Pentagon’s budget. Defense cuts would represent a divergence from traditional Republican orthodoxy, which has historically supported massive defense spending even while pushing cuts to other areas of the budget.

Musk and Ramaswamy have already made clear what they hope for from the novel advisory committee, which will wield no formal power but is likely to shape federal finances over the coming years.

In a Nov. 20 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that DOGE will emphasize “regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings” and “focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.”

That will be enabled through the assistance of allied bodies being created in the House and Senate that will work with DOGE to identify and implement reforms and cost-cutting measures.

“We will identify and investigate the waste, corruption, and absolutely useless parts of our federal government,” Greene told Fox News.

In the upper chamber, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) will lead the DOGE Caucus. Ernst has already made suggestions that could cut up to $1 trillion from the budget.