Elon Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy I will turn towards Supreme Court to unilaterally gut federal agencies and reduce their funding.

The two men — the world’s richest person and a wealthy entrepreneur who briefly ran for president — were tapped to lead a group of outside advisers. make these recommendations. Their new creation “Ministry of Government Effectiveness» (or DOGE) will be guided by a pair of Supreme Court decisions that lawyers have warned would turn the courts into weapons against federal regulations that right-wing groups have spent years trying to undermine.

Musk and Ramaswamy have said they want to cut annual federal spending by $500 billion — specifically by cutting $1.5 billion set aside for “international organizations,” and another $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds hundreds of local public radio and television stations. , and cutting $300 million for “progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”

“We strive to save money for taxpayers,” the two men explain in an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal. “Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can control through executive action alone. They emphasize the Impoundment Control Act of 1974which prevents the president from stopping spending authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested that this law is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this issue.

The DOGE duo argues that the Supreme Court’s decisions in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency And Loper Bright vs. Raimondo that means thousands of federal rules can be overturned, workers can be fired, and a conservative majority on the nation’s highest court — with three justices appointed by Trump himself — will protect their agenda from legal challenges.

The rulings “suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority granted by Congress under the law,” they wrote.

“DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by cutting-edge technology, to apply these decisions to federal regulations adopted by those agencies,” they added. “DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who may, through executive action, immediately suspend enforcement of these regulations and begin the review and rescission process.”

They argued that the rulings can be used to “free individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and boost the U.S. economy.”

Legal experts have argued that the rulings will be used to turn critical federal actions such as public health emergency responses, civil rights protections and gun control into partisan minefields, with a Republican-controlled Congress controls the rules set by these agencies.

The decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency – which hit the so-called Chevron Doctrine – determined that federal agencies cannot address “major issues” that could have a broader economic or social impact without explicit authorization from Congress.

In The June decision in Loper Luminousthe Supreme Court overturned its own precedent that courts should defer to experts in federal agencies when it came to interpreting any ambiguity.

Rulings have already led judges to block or overturn a number of Biden administration rules, including a student debt relief plan, overtime eligibility and net neutrality regulations.

The Supreme Court’s rulings have since been cited in more than 100 cases, a figure expected to rise as emboldened right-wing groups and Republican-appointed judges attack federal rules and regulations.

Musk and Ramaswamy also argue that civil service protections will not prevent them from recommending mass layoffs of federal workers.

“The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation,” they wrote. “But the law authorizes “workforce reductions” which do not target specific employees. The statute further empowers the President to “prescribe rules governing competitive service.” This power is vast.

Trump “can implement a number of ‘competitive service rules’ that would curb excessive administrative growth, from large-scale layoffs to the relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington region,” they added. .

Government watchdogs have the so-called waste already discovered amounts to less than 300 billion dollars per year. House Republicans pushed back against harsh austerity budget proposals from their far-right flank last year, and Trump failed to significantly cut domestic programs during his term after signing radical tax cuts that largely benefited businesses and high incomes. Trump now wants to make these cuts permanent.

The DOGE panel is expected to release a final report on July 4, 2026 before being disbanded.