Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are getting their waste-trimming clippers ready.

President-elect Donald Trump this week named the billionaire Tesla owner and the former Republican presidential candidate as the co-leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The two business execs are tasked with shaving trillions of dollars off the federal government's annual $6.75 trillion spend, by cutting waste, red tape, and downsizing federal agencies.

The examples of needless government largesse are all too common — from the Pentagon's big overspends on soap dispensers to questionable drag performances in South American cities.

Trump likens his cost-cutting effort to the Manhattan Project, America's atomic bomb program in the 1940s, and says it will help 'dismantle government bureaucracy.'

Musk estimates he can save taxpayers $1.9 trillion. He promises 'maximum transparency' from a team that will operate outside the regular confines of government.

'We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars,' Musk posted on X.

'This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.'

Still, critics say DOGE hands more power to the world's richest man, who donated millions to get Trump elected and whose companies could benefit from the new government portfolio.

As the axe comes down, DailyMail.com takes a look at some of the wildest examples of government overspend.

RODENT ROID RAGE

Many of the quirkiest cases of government spending are undertaken by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has paid to pump hamsters full of steroids and got them to fight in the name of science.

That $3 million study by researchers at Northeastern University was aimed at assessing 'whether current drugs for aggressive youth suppress steroid-induced aggression,' says a government report.