Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been selected by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where they will "slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," according to an official release from the Trump-Vance transition team, which called this "potentially, the "Manhattan Project" of our time."

According to the statement, "Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026" - the nation's 250th anniversary.

Musk previously predicted he could cut at least $2 trillion from the US federal budget, while Ramaswamy suggested firing federal workers based on their social security numbers.

"Here's how: if your [Social Security number] ends in an odd number, you're fired," he wrote on X.

In September, Ramaswamy told podcaster Lex Fridman: "Get in there on day one, say that anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected, elected representatives obviously were elected by the people, but the people who are not elected, if your social security number ends in an odd number, you're out, if it ends in an even number, you're in. There's a 50% cut right there. Of those who remain, if your social security number starts in an even number, you're in and if it starts with an odd number, you're out. Boom. That's a 75% reduction done. Literally, stochastically, okay, one of the virtues of that, it's a thought experiment, not a policy prescription, but one of the virtues of that thought experiment is that you don't have a bunch of lawsuits you're dealing with about gender discrimination or racial discrimination or political viewpoint discrimination."