Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to meet with House Republicans on DOGE plans

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head to Capitol Hill next week to meet with House Republicans about their plan to cut regulations and other parts of the federal government.

President Mike Johnson announced that he would host them on Thursday, December 5, to discuss “major reform ideas” aimed at “reviving the principle of limited government.”

Musk and Ramaswamy were chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the so-called “Department of Government Effectiveness.” Their role has been described as “outside government” advisors on how to make drastic cuts to various federal agencies and their staffing levels.

Musk, in particular, has become a member of Trump’s inner circle as the president-elect prepares for a second term. The Tesla billionaire spent Thanksgiving with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Earlier this week, Musk proposed abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Abolish the CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” he wrote on his social media platform X.

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, but did not specifically call for abolishing the CFPB. Emptying an entire agency would be a difficult task, and legislation is needed of Congress.

The CFPB, which was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers and scrutinize the practices of the nation’s banks, lenders and other institutions, has long been the target of conservative attacks over its cost and regulations.

Earlier this year, the CFPB survived a legal challenge led by former Trump administration solicitor general Noel Francisco on behalf of a group of payday lenders, alleging the agency’s structure was illegal. The United States Supreme Court, by a vote of 7 to 2, upheld the constitutionality of the agency’s funding mechanism.

Musk also recently reposted on social media the names of specific people and jobs that he suggested should be removed. They include employees of the Department of Energy and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. “So many fake jobs,” Musk wrote in one post.

Musk and Ramaswamy further outlined their plans for DOGE in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published last week.

They said they were helping Trump’s transition team recruit a “scaled team of small government crusaders” that would focus on three main actions: repealing regulations, reducing administrative staff and cutting costs.

“We are ready to face the onslaught of entrenched interests in Washington. We hope to win,” they wrote. “Now is the time to act decisively. Our main goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026, the expiration date we have set for our project.

Legal and logistical obstacles What remains is Musk and Ramaswamy’s goal of gutting the government. But they will get help on Capitol Hill from a new congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste in collaboration with DOGE. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch conservative and staunch Trump supporter, has been chosen to chair the panel.

Ramaswamy, in response to Johnson’s announcement of next week’s meeting, said he had had “great discussions so far” with Republican leaders in the House and Senate about DOGE.

“Congress appears serious about implementing structural reform. We look forward to productive meetings in Washington next week,” Ramaswamy wrote on X.