Vivek Ramaswamy to launch ‘DOGEcast’ podcast with Elon Musk

Indian American entrepreneur and Tesla CEO to share ‘cost-cutting updates’ in reducing the size and scope of federal government

By Arun Kumar

Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will be pausing his own weekly podcast to launch a new show with Tesla CEO Elon Musk called ‘DOGEcast,’ to give “regular updates on their cost-cutting” exercise.

Ramaswamy and Musk have been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The new department’s primary goal is to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, they wrote in a joint opinion piece in theWall Street Journal.

READ: Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk to spearhead new Trump initiative (November 14th, 2024)

“Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today,” the duo stated noting, “Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but ‘rules and regulations’ promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year.”

“Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.

Calling this “antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers,” the two wrote. Trump’s “decisive election” with “a mandate for sweeping change” gave them “a historic opportunity to solve the problem.

Arguing that “the entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long,” the duo wrote, “That’s why we’re doing things differently.”

“We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote. “We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America.”

Their team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. “The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings,” they wrote. “We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.”

Musk and Ramaswamy said they would rely on two recent Supreme Court rulings that limited the authority of federal regulatory agencies to “liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress.”

They would work with legal experts within government agencies and use advanced technology to identify regulations that Trump could “immediately pause the enforcement of” and subject to “review and rescission,” the duo wrote. “When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.

“In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorised by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies.”