Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would create a “Government Efficiency Commission” if he wins the presidential election in November, with billionaire ally Elon Musk leading the effort.
“I will establish a Commission on Government Efficiency with the task of conducting a full fiscal and performance audit of the entire federal government and recommending fundamental reforms,” Trump said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. “This needs to be done. We can't continue as we are.”
Musk, who has endorsed Republican candidates in the 2024 election, has agreed to lead the task force “if he has the time,” Trump said.
The tech mogul, who heads Tesla and SpaceX and owns the social media platform X, In a social media post On Thursday, he was happy to do so.
“If given the opportunity, I would love to serve America,” Musk wrote on X. “No salary, title or recognition needed.”
He said In a previous post “It would bring great prosperity to America,” the committee said.
Musk first raised the idea during a conversation with the former president that aired on X last month, suggesting such a committee could study the national debt and how Congress could reassess spending.
But it is unclear what specific cuts the committee will propose, and some Democrats are skeptical the committee will be serious about the effort.
“By definition, this means Trump supports cuts to Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits. At the same time, he's proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy,” said Bharat Ramamurti, a former economic official in the Biden administration. Post to X“That's his fundamental goal: giving more money to his rich buddies and less money to everyone else.”
The national debt rose during Trump's first term, and a budget modeling analysis from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania released last month estimated that the impact of the former president's economic policies could increase the national deficit by more than $4 trillion over the decade.
