SVE NEWS & BBC.COM Sharing Series — Trump gives Elon Musk and Fox News host key jobs as he prepares for second term

Elon Musk has often spoken publicly about his interest in a role working on government efficiency and budget cuts.

At a Trump rally in New York last month, he was asked how much he thought could be saved from the US government’s total budget of around $6.5tn (£5.1tn).

“I think we could do at least $2tn,” he said. “Your money is being wasted and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that.”

In a recent post on X, he wrote that “there is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go”.

In another, he said: “Federal government spending will bankrupt the country, unless action is taken.”

He’s also frequently suggested that the number of people employed by the government should be significantly reduced.

Jessica Parker
Reporting from Florida

What role tech billionaire and prominent Trump supporter Elon Musk may play in the new administration has been the subject of intense speculation and anticipation.

Now the already touted “Department of Government Efficiency” – Doge for short – has, it seems, come into being.

Musk will head up Doge – its name an apparent reference to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency – alongside entrepreneur and former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy.

However, a statement from the Trump-Vance transition team says the “department” will guide from outside government – indicating it may play more of an advisory role.

The truth is we don’t know its exact shape, resources and power – but Trump was always likely to want to reward these loyal campaign lieutenants.

Image source,Getty Images

Musk and Trump weren’t always allies. In 2022, Musk said Trump should “sail into the sunset”, while Trump claimed Musk was ready to “drop to his knees and beg” for subsidies during his first presidential term.

However, by the time this election rolled around, the world’s richest person had cemented himself as a key part of the president-elect’s inner circle.

He publicly endorsed Trump shortly after he survived an assassination attempt in July, and poured at least $100m into supporting him.

The Tesla CEO appeared on stage at Republican rallies and in the final days of the campaign handed out $1m every day to a registered voter in a key state, a scheme critics said amounted to buying votes and was challenged in the courts.

Musk also welcomed Trump back to X shortly after buying the platform in 2022, reversing a ban instated on his account in the wake of the 6 January riots over “the risk of further incitement of violence”.

The pair don’t agree on everything – not least electric vehicles – but the 53-year-old was with Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago on election night.

When he took to the stage to claim victory, the president-elect spent a few minutes praising Musk as a “new star” and “super genius”.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent

Image source,Reuters

Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has been a full-time presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago transition headquarters. According to media reports, he is advising the president-elect on cabinet nominees and even joined a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

On Tuesday night, Trump announced that he was assigning Musk to work with tech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in a “department of government efficiency” tasked with identifying new budget cuts.

Musk’s political action committee spent around $200m to help Trump’s presidential campaign, and he promises to continue to fund the group’s efforts to advance the president-elect’s agenda and help Republican candidates in upcoming congressional elections.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen where Robert F Kennedy Jr, another key figure, lands. Trump has said that he plans to give the former Democrat and vaccine sceptic, who abandoned his independent bid and endorsed the Republican, a role in making America “healthy” again.

“He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it,” Trump said in his election victory speech.

It’s not yet clear what form the organisation Elon Musk as been tasked to lead will take.

In a statement confirming the appointment, Trump says the so-called Department of Government Efficiency will “provide advice and guidance from outside of government” – implying it will not sit within formal federal government structures.

The statement also says the organisation will “partner with the White House and [the pre-existing] Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform”.

We also know Musk and his partner Vivek Ramaswamy have been given a July 2026 deadline for their work. It’s not clear if their positions would also expire at that point.

Image source,Reuters

In Trump’s statement confirming he is setting up a new agency tasked with cutting government spending and regulation, Musk is quoted as saying: “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!”

Musk has responded to a post sharing the statement on X – the social media platform he owns – on an account managed on behalf of Tommy Robinson, a far-right UK activist who is currently imprisoned.

“People have no idea how much this will move the needle,” he writes.

Ramaswamy also reacted on X, writing: “We will not go gently.”

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been handed the authority to conduct sweeping changes to government spending, according to Donald Trump.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” his statement reads.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” he says, referring to the American programme to develop the first atomic bomb.

It is unclear exactly what form this new department will take but it appears it will be outside formal government structures.

The statement goes on: “The Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government,” he adds, with a goal to “create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before”.

Trump says they have a deadline of concluding their work by US Independence Day on 4 July, 2026.

As we’ve just reported, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been chosen by Donald Trump to lead a new organisation dedicated to driving “government efficiency”.

The Department of Government Efficiency will be known as Doge for short, according to Trump – an apparent reference to the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which Musk has supported, calling it “the people’s crypto”.

Musk donated a reported $200m (£157m) to Trump’s campaign, and was one of his top public surrogates.

Ramaswamy took on Trump for the Republican nomination during the primary election but became one of Trump’s loudest supporters following his defeat.

The multi-millionaire has suggested a number of radical overhauls, including eliminating the FBI.

Image source,Getty Images

Donald Trump has confirmed he will appoint South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Noem – whose name was floated over the summer as a potential vice-presidential candidate – has long been a Trump ally and has vigorously campaigned on behalf of the president-elect.

She made headlines earlier this year when in her memoir she revealed she had killed her dog with a shotgun because it was “untrainable” and “dangerous”.

Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have been tasked with leading a new Department of Government Efficiency by Donald Trump

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” Trump said in a statement.

We’ll bring you more on this story very shortly.

Image source,Getty Images

Pete Hegseth will be the next defence secretary, Trump just announced in a campaign release.

Hegseth is an army veteran, a Fox News host and former head of two advocacy groups for military veterans. He previously ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in Minnesota.

“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Trump wrote in a statement. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”

His appointment is one of the most highly anticipated in Trump’s cabinet as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza rage on.

“Nobody fights harder for the Troops and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy,” Trump said.

Image source,Dan Scavino Jr/X

As Donald Trump assembles his new administration, officials from other countries are also weighing on the recent US election.

Australia’s ambassador to the US – and former prime minister – Kevin Rudd was once a vocal critic of Trump, and the president-elect is not a fan of Rudd either, earlier this year saying he was “nasty” and “not the brightest bulb”.

After the election last week, Rudd deleted several social media posts about Trump which were made before his time as ambassador. His office said this was to “eliminate the possibility” of them being “misconstrued” as reflecting the views of the Australian government.

But questions have been raised over whether Rudd’s position in Washington is still tenable.

Influential Trump ally Dan Scavino Jr poured fuel on that fire on Tuesday, retweeting Rudd’s statement congratulating Trump on his victory, external with a gif of an hourglass emptying – suggesting the ambassador was running out of time.

However Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly said he has no plans to remove Rudd, and former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also supported him – despite being a political rival of Rudd – by saying it is for Australia to decide who represents the country, not the US.

Kayla Epstein
reporting from New York

As he builds his new White House team, Donald Trump is recruiting from the US House of Representatives for key administration posts.

He has announced he will name New York Republican Elise Stefanik and Florida’s Mike Waltz to his cabinet.

The appointments would be taking two lawmakers off the table when the battle for control of the US House remains razor thin.

Even so, things will probably be fine for Republicans in the House in the long term. Both of those lawmakers are in safely Republican districts, meaning the party has less of a chance of losing the seats to a Democrat. In New York and Florida, special elections will be called to fill the vacant seats.

Holding those special elections however, could take some time – perhaps a couple of months after the new US Congress is gavelled into session. And if partisan control of the US House turns out to be very narrow – as it is predicted to be – once all the races are called, any absence could have an impact during contentious votes.

It remains to be seen how many other sitting members of Congress Trump will choose for his new administration.

Trump also reportedly has plans to nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, but his seat is guaranteed to stay in conservative hands. The state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, gets to name Rubio’s replacement if he is appointed to the cabinet, and it is inconceivable that he wouldn’t pick a member of the same party.

Image source,Getty Images

The road for John Ratcliffe – who Donald Trump just nominated to be head of the CIA in his second term – to become America’s top intelligence official during the last Trump administration was long and winding.

He was first nominated to be the director of national intelligence in 2019, days after his high-profile questioning in Congress of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller, you may remember, was the ex-FBI director who led an inquiry into allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

But Trump withdrew the nomination days later after objections from both parties over concerns about his qualifications.

Trump nominated him again in 2020, after saying that Ratcliffe had been “treated very badly, very harshly by the press”.

Ratcliffe’s second nomination also came after the then-congressman worked on Trump’s team in Congress during the president-elect’s first impeachment.

Image source,Reuters

Trump has announced that he has appointed real estate developer Steve Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East.

Witkoff is a close friend of the president-elect, a major donor to his campaign and his long-time golf partner. In fact, Witkoff was golfing with Trump in September during the second assassination attempt against the former president.

The 67-year-old New Yorker testified in Trump’s defence at his Manhattan criminal fraud trial. He told the court that the two met in 1986 after a business transaction. He said he bought Trump a sandwich because Trump didn’t have any cash with him at the time.

In his statement on Tuesday, Trump says that Witkoff is a leader who “has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous”.

“Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

On Saturday, Trump announced that he had tapped Witkoff to be co-chairman of the committee planning his inauguration.

We’re just hearing of a new appointment to the president-elect’s cabinet – Donald Trump has announced William Joseph McGinley will serve as his White House counsel.

In a press release, Trump calls the Republican a “smart and tenacious lawyer”, who will advance an “America First agenda”.

McGinley served during the first Trump administration as White House Cabinet Secretary.

Trump also praises the “major role” that he says the lawyer played during his election victory as the Republican National Committee’s outside counsel for election integrity.

Trump has chosen his former Director of National Intelligence to serve as his Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

John Ratcliffe “has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Trump says in his statement.

The former Texas congressman has been a vocal defender of Trump in the face of Democratic critics. Trump’s statement praises his loyal record in Congress.

Why Trump is deploying Huckabee to Israelpublished at 06:25

06:25

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source,Getty Images

As we’ve been reporting, Mike Huckabee is Donald Trump’s pick to be the next US ambassador to Israel.

Though he is the first non-Jew to fill the post in 13 years, Huckabee, 69, is a long-time pro-Israeli voice in the American evangelical community and could boost Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of annexing portions of the West Bank.

The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister made his first trip to Israel in 1973 and has since led dozens of Christian missions to the country, with whom he he has declared a “visceral, personal” connection. During a 2018 visit, he donned a hard hat and laid bricks for a new housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, saying he “might one day like to purchase a holiday home” there.

In his first run for president in 2008, Huckabee said: “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” When he ran again in 2016, before dropping out and endorsing Trump, he vowed to back the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which he called “an integral part” of Israel.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, has already tweeted his congratulations to “a consistent and loyal friend” with whom he vowed to “strengthen Israel’s security and strength”.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, wrote: “Mike Huckabee” with flag and heart emojis.

Orientation sessions for new members of Congress began today on Capitol Hill.

Republicans are preparing to return to the Senate majority in January, with six new members of the caucus.

Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Republican leader, posted a photo alongside five senators-elect – from left, Montana’s Tim Sheehy, Indiana’s Jim Banks, Utah’s John Curtis, Pennsylvania’s Dave McCormick and Ohio’s Bernie Moreno.

Image source,X@LeaderMcConnell

Representative Andy Kim, the new senator for New Jersey, posted a group photo of his own with his five new colleagues – Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester, California’s Adam Schiff, Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, Arizona’s Ruben Gallego and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks.