Unelected Trump adviser Elon Musk says US will be run by elected officials, not bureaucrats
Billionaire unelected Trump adviser promises ‘mass headcount reductions’ for US public servants as unions plan resistance amid deepening fears over government restructuring.
Elon Musk promised “mass headcount reductions” for US public servants, including any who refuse to work in the office full-time, as part of a plan to save $US2 trillion ($3.08 trillion) from the federal budget.
Donald Trump will also scrap thousands of regulations issued “by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants”, Mr Musk wrote in a joint article with Vivek Ramaswamy in The Wall Street Journal.
The unelected pair of Trump advisers said their new Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, would return America to the founding principle that it should be run by elected representatives rather than bureaucrats “who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil service protections”.
Unions are planning to resist the cuts, which have prompted widespread talks on whether to stay on or seek pay-offs. Their fears deepened with the announcement Marjorie Taylor Greene, an outspoken Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist, would assist with the restructuring of government.
“We are getting prepared for a really, really big fight,” said Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents 110,000 of the 2.3 million federal employees.
“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” Mr Musk wrote with Mr Ramaswamy, 39, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who ran for the Republican nomination before becoming a Trump supporter.
A government audit of home working in May found 54 per cent of federal employees worked entirely in the office or on site. Of the 1.1 million eligible for home working, 61.2 per cent of work hours were spent in the office or in the field with 10 per cent of the civilian workforce working remote full-time.
A study in 2022 found salaries and benefits made up 4.3 per cent of the federal budget, or $US271bn, suggesting even a 50 per cent cut in staffing would shave a little over 2 per cent from the budget.
The biggest components of public spending are social security and health insurance. Mr Trump has vowed not to cut these provisions.
The Times
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