(Reuters) – Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said the government efficiency panel named by President Donald Trump to lead will follow a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said it could be used to take power from federal agencies and reduce regulations. calls are unnecessary, expensive and inefficient.
Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ: ) and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate and founder of biotech company Roivant Sciences (NASDAQ: ), will lead an outside advisory panel to make recommendations on the federal government. He wants to reduce the size of the federal workforce and eliminate many existing regulations.
Because of the ambitious claims made by Musk, Ramaswamy and Trump about the panel’s ability to transform the US government, the effort has garnered a lot of publicity and interest in how it works.
The two men wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the panel on Wednesday. He said his bid to enforce existing regulations will be guided by a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that limit the authority of federal regulatory agencies.
In a 2022 decision, the court ruled that agencies cannot address “major questions” with broad economic or social impact without explicit consent from Congress. In a ruling in June, the court overturned its own precedent that had asked courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws.
Both rulings led to judges blocking or striking down some of the Biden administration’s rules, including student loan relief plans and regulations on net neutrality and overtime pay.
Simultaneously, the Supreme Court’s decision shows that thousands of other federal rules are invalid, according to Musk and Ramaswamy. He also predicted legal challenges if Trump rescinds existing rules, but said the president has the power to correct overreach by agencies.
With an electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Musk and Ramaswamy said, their panel has an opportunity to make significant structural reductions in the federal government.
William Buzbee, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in administrative law, called Musk and Ramaswamy’s interpretation of the recent Supreme Court case “very confusing,” and that neither decision limits agency power as drastically as they claim.
Trump said last week the panel would issue individual reports on its work and “the big one” at the end, scheduled for July 4, 2026.
The panel expects that Trump will, “by executive action, immediately suspend enforcement of these regulations and initiate a process to review and repeal them.”
Musk and Ramaswamy said they could reduce federal spending by up to $500 billion by cutting spending that has not been authorized by Congress or used in ways Congress does not want, citing $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $1.5 billion for international organizations and nearly $300 million is given to groups like Planned Parenthood.
He said a partnership with Trump’s transition team was underway to hire a “small cross-government” team that would work with the White House Office of Management and Budget. Trump will take office on January 20.
Musk and Ramaswamy also suggested that requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would cause workers to leave their jobs. Some Republicans want Musk to back down from requiring all federal workers to work privately.
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst said Wednesday she sent a roadmap to Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy “on how to stop the shenanigans and get federal workers back to work.”
Since it was announced last week, the panel has said it wants “high IQ” employees and plans to broadcast live weekly, according to social media posts by Musk and Ramaswamy.
Buzbee said Trump has “a lot of latitude” to order agencies to “go easy on enforcement,” but there are significant obstacles to the deregulation described by Musk and Ramaswamy.
Many regulations allow private citizens to bring enforcement lawsuits, he said — for example, by suing polluters who violate environmental standards. Rolling back the regulations is an intensive legal process that would be difficult for agencies if their staff were suddenly cut, he said.
The panel is not Trump’s first attempt to dismantle a regulatory agency.
During his first season, he tried to kill at least 19 agencies, but was unsuccessful. He called for the abolition of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation which helps spur private investment in foreign development projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He also tried to cut funding for Amtrak, subsidies for rural airline service and the Special Olympics.
