(NewsNation) — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will meet with House Republicans Thursday as they look to cut trillions of dollars from the government budget under President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump appointed the two tech entrepreneurs to head the effort and rein in government spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., invited Musk and Ramaswamy to Capitol Hill to go over their plan.
“We’re excited. I invited Elon and Vivek to come to the Hill because the three of us were talking a lot about ideas, but I wanted to involve more of the members,” Johnson said, “and I think most will be there because there’s a lot of interest in this, and we’ll have a brainstorming session and kind of set the table for what’s to come.”
Musk and Ramaswamy have not publicly given specifics on what their plan is to slash thousands of regulations and make massive cuts to the federal workforce. However, they have said that fewer regulations mean fewer employees are required to enforce them.
The two also proposed requiring federal employees to go into the office five days a week, which they said they believe may bring a wave of voluntary resignations.
At Thursday’s meeting, Musk and Ramaswamy may bring up annual federal expenditures they say are either unauthorized by Congress or used in ways Congress never intended.
Such examples include $535 million a year for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $1.5 billion in grants for international organizations and around $300 million for progressive groups like Planned Parenthood — drops in the bucket compared to their stated goal of cutting $2 trillion from the budget.
The DOGE team has gotten support from some Democrats, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who posted his support to X.
The department does not have the authority to cut budgets itself; it will advise the Office of Management and Budgets. Ross Vought is Trump’s nominee to head that agency.