Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said Wednesday that their newest government effectiveness panel will identify “thousands” of regulations for President-elect Trump to eliminate, which they say will justify “massive staff reductions” across government.

The two men, who were named co-chairs of the panel last week, outlined their plans for the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) in a statement. Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

“We will both advise DOGE at every stage to pursue three broad types of reforms: regulatory repeals, administrative reductions, and cost savings,” they wrote. “We will particularly focus on driving change through executive actions based on existing legislation rather than through the adoption of new laws. »

Musk and Ramaswamy highlighted several recent Supreme Court decisions that take aim at administrative state power, arguing that a “plethora of current federal regulations” exceed the agency’s authority and could be sidelined.

Reducing regulations should enable “at least” proportional reductions in government staffing, they say.

“A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides a sound industrial rationale for massive workforce reductions across the federal bureaucracy,” the two men wrote in the op-ed.

“Not only would fewer employees be required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited,” they added.

Musk and Ramaswamy preemptively addressed arguments about protecting the civil service that could potentially prevent Trump from firing federal employees.

“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.

“With this authority, Mr. 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.

Officials are already mobilizing in the face of possible massive budget cuts, hiring lawyers and preparing public campaigns while hoping that Congress will intervene. according to Reuters.

DOGE also hopes to target “unauthorized” federal funding, which could impact everything from veterans’ health care and opioid addiction treatment to NASA, The Washington Post reported.

The editorial apparently seeks to address widespread skepticism about the ability of Musk and Ramaswamy’s panel to enact change.

As a commission outside of government, it would be limited to an advisory role, meaning it could face many obstacles within the executive branch, as well as within Congress, experts previously told The Hill.

However, Musk’s close relationship with the president-elect could have an influence. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX played a key role in Trump’s campaign, contributing millions of dollars to his own pro-Trump super PAC and participating in the campaign trial.

Since Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Harris earlier this month, Musk has remained within striking distance; The billionaire tech mogul joined the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago on election night to watch the results and later received shoutouts during Trump’s victory speech.

Musk has spent much of his time in Palm Beach, Florida, over the past two weeks, reportedly weighing in on Trump’s Cabinet picks and attending meetings, including those with world leaders.

He also welcomed Trump to Texas to observe the launch of a SpaceX rocket Tuesday afternoon.

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