‘The Manhattan Project of our time’: Trump sets sights high for Musk and Ramaswamy in new department

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped entrepreneur Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new nongovernmental body focused on government efficiency.

“I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’),” the president-elect wrote in a statement.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” added Trump.

The department “will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform,” he explained.

The president-elect said DOGE will deliver “a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy,” by July 4, 2026. This will be “the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence.”

“Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!” Musk posted on X, which he owns, Tuesday night.

Musk endorsed Trump in the closing month of the presidential campaign, while Ramaswamy endorsed Trump in January. At the Republican National Convention in July, Ramaswamy told The Daily Signal that he had enjoyed “great conversations” with the former president about a potential Cabinet position.

Trump also announced Tuesday evening that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, will be his nominee for secretary of homeland security, and Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and military veteran, will be his nominee for secretary of defense.

In March 2023, Trump released a plan to dismantle the deep state, a term referring to bureaucrats who nominally report to the president but have become insulated by public sector unions and administrative procedures. While the deep state undermined Trump’s first presidency, even Joe Biden’s presidency has arguably faced a deep state phenomenon on the issue of Israel.

Among other things, Trump promised to “clean out all the rogue actors” who had weaponized federal government agencies, so that “faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the Left’s political enemies, which they’re doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible.”

“DOGE” refers to an internet meme that became popular in 2013. The meme involves a picture of a Shiba Inu dog with multicolored text in Comic Sans font in the foreground. The meme often features a string of phrases in comedically broken English such as, “much Deep State… more Elon… VIV-ACHE!!… less gov more fun… WOW!!”