Businessman and co-leader of President-elect Donald Trump’s newly created “Department of Government Efficiency,” Vivek Ramaswamy said he expects “mass reductions” in the federal government, including some agencies to be wiped out entirely as a result of the new effort.
“We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,” Ramaswamy said in an interview Sunday on Fox News. “We expect mass reductions in force, in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts among federal contractors and others who are over-billing the federal government.”
Ramaswamy, who came onto the national scene when he launched his own presidential bid as a Republican in 2024 before dropping out and endorsing Trump, specifically cited the Department of Education as a government entity that “shouldn’t even exist” and should be “returned to the states.”
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to shut down the department, citing concerns such as schools currently “indoctrinating young people.”
Ramaswamy added Sunday that he anticipates other departments will be “downsized” and expressed openness at the possibility that some could be moved out of the nation’s capital to states where they are “more accountable to the people.”
He noted one area in particular in which he expects a significant reduction throughout Washington is in the number of nonelected civilian employees of the federal government, known as civil servants.
“We don't need 4 million, and we shouldn't have 4 million civil servants who aren't even elected or can't be removed from their positions. It's anti-democratic,” he said.
The former president and now president-elect tapped Ramaswamy and billionaire businessman Elon Musk to lead an effort in his second administration to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies” under a newly created private advisory body called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or “DOGE.” Both businessmen became major surrogates for Trump on the campaign trail this year.
Ramaswamy on Sunday noted the “historic opportunity” the new body has to change Washington, noting Trump’s resounding victory in the election, the fact that both chambers of Congress are set to be controlled by Republicans next year and the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
“If we don’t downsize the federal government now, it is never going to happen in the future,” he said.
He added that the public would be “surprised” by how quickly they will be able to move to make such changes, citing the “legal backdrop the Supreme Court has given us.”
The new department is designed to be temporary, with Trump noting in his announcement of the effort that its work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026 – about a year and half into his second administration. The president-elect last week said the body will issue reports, including a “big one” at the end.
Ramaswamy and Musk wouldn’t be able to effect change unilaterally, and the former GOP presidential candidate said on Sunday that he expects many of the fixes to be made through executive action without Congress.
There are still many questions that remain about how the effort will be run, but the department’s new account on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter and now owned by Musk, put out a call last week for “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”
The post encouraged those interested to direct message the X account with their CVs, adding that Musk and Ramaswamy will review the top 1% of applicants.
Musk also noted on X last week that neither he nor Ramaswamy are being paid for their efforts.