He also mentioned a list of “dumb” spending, which he noted would be “extremely entertaining”.
Under the current budget, the highest-spending departments are Health and Human Services, the Social Security Administration, and the Treasury.
Social Security accounted for $1.46 trillion of the spending, health accounted for $912 billion, and Medicare made up $874 billion of government spending over the past year.
For clues on how Musk and co may go about slashing federal budgets some are looking to Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission
It was made up of about 150 business leaders reviewing spending across the government, who produced 2,500 recommendations.
“Most of the recommendations, especially those requiring legislation from Congress, were never implemented,” the Reagan Library said.
In his first term in office Mr Trump signed an executive order to “eliminate or reorganize unnecessary federal agencies” but failed to close some 19 he had his eyes on.
Shrinking big government
The full scope and mechanics of DOGE is still being decided, and it is also not known how the commission will be funded, raising further questions. The Federal Advisory Committee Act does not require advisory bodies to pay their members.
Some have already suggested there is irony in an efficiency department having two people — Musk and Mr Ramaswamy — doing one job.
Mr Ramaswamy, a billionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate, campaigned on a platform to shrink the size of the American government.
He said he would use executive orders to shut agencies, and in the case of the FBI he wanted to re-allocate part of its $11.4 billion budget to the Secret Service and Defence Intelligence Agency.
“Shut it down!” became a key campaign slogan for the businessman-turned-conservative influencer, who dropped out of the Republican primaries to endorse Mr Trump.
A 2021 book “Woke INC” by Mr Ramaswamy denounced business strategies being dictated by climate change and social justice concerns in a hint of other targets for savings.
Mr Ramaswamy’s proposal to shut down the FBI is likely to find favour with his boss.
The investigators raided the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 as part of a probe into withheld classified documents. It has been reported that Melania Trump turned down a traditional post-election meeting with the first lady, Jill Biden, because of her anger over seeing their South Florida home ransacked during the search.
And like the raid on the 1920s palace, Mr Ramaswamy has said “we will not go gently” in an indication of how the financier and Mr Musk will approach their new task.
On Mr Musk’s agenda are $2 trillion in budget cuts — just under a third of the US government’s $6.75 trillion spend.
“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” he told the Madison Square Garden rally for Mr Trump in New York City.
“We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.”
The Tesla founder’s fingerprints are all over the project, down to its abbreviation, DOGE, the meme-themed crypto currency he promotes.
The low-cost crypto has jumped in price by 150 per cent in response to the news.