Vivek Ramaswamy wants to slash US federal workforce in 'aggressive' but 'respectful' manner

Former Republican presidential candidate is working with Elon Musk to shrink the government under a new office called the Department of Government Efficiency

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy at the Aspen Security Form in Washington on December 4, 2024. Thomas Watkins / The National

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday outlined how he and Elon Musk are seeking to slash the federal workforce in an “aggressive” but “respectful” manner.

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Mr Ramaswamy and Mr Musk to lead a newly created commission called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, that seeks to shrink government agencies, cut regulations and reduce the role of what they see as a left-wing cabal of unelected civil servants who might use administrative powers to resist Mr Trump's second-term agenda.

“The overarching problem to be solved is the people we elect to run the government are no longer the ones who are actually running the government,” Mr Ramaswamy told the Aspen Security Forum in Washington. “The people who are making the most important policy decisions in Washington, DC today … are people who were never elected to those positions.”

Mr Ramaswamy, 39, made it clear that he and Mr Musk would be recommending federal layoffs to Mr Trump, who as President will be head of the federal workforce. He said cuts would be done in an “aggressive manner” but in a way that is “respectful” to people as they transition “from government service back to the private sector”.

“Individual federal employees are mostly not bad people, actually, because most human beings are not bad people,” he said. “To the contrary, most people who are federal employees are doing what they do because they believe they're serving their country, and I respect that.”

Mr Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, said he and Mr Musk would not be taking aim at social security programmes as any changes to these would require Congressional action. But he said “probably hundreds of billions of dollars” could be saved by cutting fraud and waste in the programmes.

When asked about areas the Pentagon, which has an annual budget approaching $1 trillion, could cut costs, Mr Ramaswamy suggested it should be spending more on drone and hypersonic missile development instead of manned fighter jets.

Mr Musk recently said something similar, taking particular aim at the F-35 stealth fighter, which is projected to have a lifetime cost of about $2 trillion, making it the most expensive weapons programme in history.

The two have floated other ideas, such as ending daylight savings time, where Americans set the clocks back or forward one hour each spring and autumn. An end to the widely disliked practice would take an act of Congress.

Mr Ramaswamy, who has previously criticised Mr Musk for being a “circus monkey” who supports China, on Wednesday praised his new DOGE colleague.

“I have never worked with somebody who I feel more challenged by … I mean, he's somebody who's able to think outside of the box, outside of the matrix, in a way that I haven't actually seen before,” Mr Ramaswamy said.

The Republican is a staunch support of president-elect Trump and dropped his own bid for the White House after a dismal showing in the Iowa caucuses.

Mr Trump has indicated that the DOGE office would operate outside the government but its day-to-day operations remain unclear. Both Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy have business ties impacted by the US government that could represent conflicts of interest.

When asked if he and Mr Musk would disclose and divest from any potential conflicts of interest, Mr Ramaswamy said: “Everything's got to be done in the exact proper way. We're outside government. That's different from when people are inside government, but I think the transparency is the way forward.”