Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged that President-elect Donald Trump’s newly announced Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will eliminate entire federal agencies in a sweeping effort to streamline the federal workforce.
Ramaswamy, co-leading DOGE alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk, hinted at significant layoffs and operational changes across government institutions. He stated that the initiative would assess inefficiencies and make real-time recommendations for cuts.

“We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,” Ramaswamy, 39, told Maria Bartiromo during an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated.
“We expect massive cuts among federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government,” he added. “I think people will be surprised by, I think, how quickly we’re able to move.”
However, some lawmakers argue that such drastic measures can’t be implemented without congressional approval.
Critics, including Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), pointed out that disbanding federal agencies requires legislative action.
“Government 101: No federal agencies will be ‘deleted’ without an Act of Congress. The President cannot [undo] by executive order what Congress has done by statute. Congress, not the President, is the final word on the fate of federal agencies,” Torres wrote on X.
Ramaswamy has been vocal about his disdain for the administrative state, a theme that featured prominently in his campaign during the 2024 Republican primaries. One of his proposals involved firing federal employees based on whether their Social Security numbers ended in odd digits.
Trump, 78, officially announced DOGE last week, stating that the initiative would wrap up its work by July 4, 2026. Despite its name, DOGE isn’t formally part of the federal government, taking inspiration instead from the Dogecoin cryptocurrency and meme culture.
Ramaswamy argued that Trump’s recent election victory signaled strong voter support for sweeping changes to government operations.
“They haven’t voted for incremental change here this time,” he explained. “We have voted for sweeping change, and the voters actually deserve to get it. And we’re focused on how to do that as early and as quickly as possible.”
Citing previous Supreme Court rulings, Ramaswamy emphasized that reducing the administrative state is not only necessary but also feasible under existing executive powers.
“Rescind those regulations, pull those regs back, and then that gives us the industrial logic to then downsize the size of that administrative state,” he said. “And the beauty of all of this is, that can be achieved just through executive action without Congress.”
Skepticism toward DOGE remains widespread.
While campaigning, Musk claimed the federal government could cut its budget by $2 trillion—an amount that surpasses all discretionary spending, including the military budget, which totals about $1.6 trillion for fiscal year 2024.
Much of the federal budget, however, is allocated to mandatory programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest payments on the national debt. Critics took issue with Musk’s America Super PAC labeling interest payments as wasteful spending in its 2023 report.
“Early reviews are not good. I read his 12-point government waste manifesto. And he said, look at all this money we’re paying on interest on the debt,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday.
“Guess what? You got to pay interest on the debt,” Himes continued. “There is a syndrome where very wealthy people who got wealthy in finance or as a tech entrepreneur decide that they’re heart surgeons and capable of running the United States … early returns are not good.”
Musk’s history of slashing workforces—most notably his dramatic staff cuts at Twitter (now renamed X) after acquiring the company in late 2022—has also raised eyebrows.
Despite the criticism, Ramaswamy remains confident that he and Musk can execute the reforms needed to cut bureaucratic inefficiency.
“I think the public is on our side. Most of the public understands their taxpayer dollars are not being well spent,” he stated. “Elon and I aren’t in this for the credit. But I think we’re going to build the consensus to make the kind of deep cuts that haven’t been made for most of our history.”
Meanwhile, the national debt surged past $36 trillion late last week, adding urgency to discussions about fiscal reform.
{Matzav.com}