Former President Donald Trump plans to put Elon Musk in charge of a “government efficiency commission” and to revoke unspent climate law funds if he wins in November.
The former president detailed his plans as part of a broader speech at the Economic Club of New York as he laid out his economic policy agenda ahead of his debate next week against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” Trump said. Musk, Trump said, has agreed to lead the task force.
The commission’s first task, Trump said, will be to “develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments.”
The former president also pledged to slash regulations, including by ordering the government to eliminate at least 10 regulations for every one new regulation. It is an expansion of his first-term policy that promised to slash two regulations for every new one but resulted in more than five cuts for each new rule, Trump said.
Musk has signaled that he’s interested in working with a Trump administration on slashing government regulations. “I can’t wait. There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,” Musk posted this week on his social media platform, X.
“Elon Musk, as the president has said, is a genius. He’s an innovator. He’s somebody that has literally made history-changing work out of building efficient systems,” Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, told reporters ahead of the speech.
“So when Elon started the conversation with the president, I think the president was very excited that somebody like Elon Musk — who is so dedicated to America’s future — that he’d be willing to be a part of something that really tries to make our government work more efficiently and with cost savings for America’s taxpayers,” Hughes said.
How such a commission would ultimately get staffed and directed is “yet to come,” Hughes said, but “what I think you’ll hear today is a reaffirmation that President Trump loves the idea and will work with Mr. Musk and others to ensure we have it in place and really analyze the functionality of our government.”
Revoking climate law cash
Trump also said Thursday that he would rescind all unspent funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law.
Robert Lighthizer, who served as U.S. trade representative under Trump, called that law an “absolute monstrosity” in the call ahead of Trump’s speech.
There may be parts of the sweeping law that Republicans would want to consider keeping, Lighthizer told reporters, but the general position of the GOP “is going to be repeal,” he said.
Thursday’s announcements mark the latest signal from Trump that he would look to slash federal regulations and overhaul the federal bureaucracy if he retakes the presidency.
Trump recently named Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during his presidency, as chair of his presidential transition team. McMahon is chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded by former Trump officials that has spent recent years drafting a policy playbook for the next conservative president.
One of the “pillars” of the think tank’s agenda is titled, “Fight government corruption by draining the swamp.” The group’s agenda urges the next president to dramatically overhaul federal rulemaking, including by requiring agencies to take two deregulatory actions for each new regulatory action and to force agencies to cap the total cost of all regulations they issue.
