Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy could use private sector methods to slash government jobs
If you work for the federal government, there’s a good chance you could be getting a pink slip – or at least a severance package before getting shown the door in the new Trump Administration, On The Money has learned.
In a move to tame the leviathan known as the vast federal workforce, President-elect Donald Trump created a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” headed by Tesla chief Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
The dynamic duo – tasked with hacking $2 trillion in costs of waste and abuse – have their eyes set on eliminating swaths of government jobs that have been considered untouchable because of civil service rules, people close to the matter said.
They’re looking at ways around those rules. During Trump I, The Donald signed an executive order designed to grant the White House power to fire civil servants if it does so en masse; you need to whack whole departments rather than individual jobs to get around civil service rules.
They’re also weighing private-sector methods that include doling out severance packages. Businesses do this all the time of course; for some short-term pain in terms of upfront costs you gain greater savings in the future.
But it’s unusual for the public, and the cuts are sure to face resistance; that’s why Trump advisers are weighing severance agreements — paying salaries and benefits for a couple of years — to entice people to leave before their jobs are eliminated, people close to Trump tell On The Money.
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We all know how much Trump hates the so-called deep state – those allegedly nameless and faceless bureaucrats that wield enormous power in government. In reality, these people have faces and names, and there are literally tens of millions of them that hold powerful positions at various federal agencies that really don’t know anyone in the White House.
Musk and Ramaswamy were key economic advisers to Trump during the campaign and both believe the federal government is more wasteful than any business they have ever seen. Elon is particularly adept at cutting inefficient jobs; recall after buying Twitter and renaming it X he eliminated upwards of 80% of the social media platform’s workforce without much of a hitch.
No one likes getting fired, particularly a government worker who can phone it in from home most of the time. That means, this could get messy, but the Trump people say the battle is necessary. And they have the right people to lead the effort.
