Elon Musk's new identity: "Minister Ma"!

After strongly supporting Trump to win the U.S. presidential election, Musk's position has been officially announced. On November 12, local time, President-elect Trump announced in a statement that Musk will co-lead a proposed initiative called the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy after he takes office. Trump stated that DOGE could become the "Manhattan Project" of this era, providing "advice and guidance" from outside the government and collaborating with the White House Office of Management and Budget to "drive large-scale structural reforms and create an unprecedented entrepreneurial government governance model." Trump indicated that their work will be completed no later than July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Trump mentioned that Musk and Ramaswamy will assist the government in dismantling bureaucracy, cutting excessive regulations, reducing wasteful spending, and restructuring federal agencies: I look forward to Elon and Vivek focusing on efficiency while improving the lives of all Americans and transforming the federal bureaucracy. Importantly, we will eliminate the massive waste and fraud present in the $6.5 trillion government spending each year. They will work together to liberate our economy and make the U.S. government accountable to "our people." Musk stated in the announcement: "This will send shockwaves through the system; anyone involved in government waste, and that's a lot of people!" Additionally, Musk mentioned that all actions of the "Department of Government Efficiency" will be published online. It is worth noting that the DOGE project is named after the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which Musk strongly advocates. After Trump's election, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin surged, with Dogecoin seeing a remarkable increase of nearly 122% in the past week. Trump previously stated that he hopes Musk can help cut government costs by $2 trillion, which means about one-third of the total costs. In a video released two days after the election, Trump stated that he would "immediately reissue the 2020 executive order to restore the president's power to fire rogue bureaucrats." In Trump's blueprint for his second term campaign in 2025, he proposed a "You're fired!" initiative, which outlines ways to allow bureaucrats to be dismissed. Musk has extensive experience in cutting corporate expenses. After acquiring Twitter in 2022, he reduced its workforce by 80% and revealed that this move effectively avoided a $3 billion funding gap. However, some media pointed out that Musk seems unconcerned about what will happen after the cuts, admitting that reducing expenses "will inevitably bring some temporary difficulties." After Musk took over, Twitter's revenue plummeted, and advertisers withdrew their investments. Analysts believe that although Musk runs multiple companies, he lacks experience in managing government departments. Compared to corporate employees, federal government employees enjoy strong job protections, which will hinder Musk's ability to implement drastic cost-cutting measures and may even prevent him from doing so. **