Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be looking to the Supreme Court to unilaterally gut federal agencies and cut funding.
The two men — the world’s richest person and a wealthy entrepreneur who briefly ran for president — have been tapped to lead a panel of outside advisers to make those recommendations. Their newly created “Department of Government Efficiency” (or DOGE) will be guided by a pair of Supreme Court rulings that legal scholars have warned will turn the courts into weapons against federal regulations that right-wing groups have spent years trying to undermine.
Musk and Ramaswamy have said they want to reduce annual federal spending by $500 billion — specifically, by cutting $1.5 billion earmarked for “international organizations,” another $535 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds hundreds of locally owned public radio and television stations, and gutting $300 million for “progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”
“We are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers,” the pair explain in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. “The Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question.”
The DOGE duo argue that Supreme Court rulings in West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency and Loper Bright v Raimondo mean thousands of federal rules can be overturned, workers can be fired, and that a conservative majority on the nation’s highest court — with three justices nominated by Trump himself — will insulate their agenda from legal challenges.
The rulings “suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law,” they wrote.
“DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies,” they added. “DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission.”
They argued that the rulings can be used to “liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the US economy.”
Legal experts have argued that the rulings will be used to turn critical federal actions like emergency public health responses, civil rights protections and gun control into partisan minefields, with a Republican-controlled Congress in control of the rules those agencies set.
The decision in West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency — which struck down the so-called Chevron doctrine — determined that federal agencies cannot address “major questions” that could have broader economic or social impact without explicit permission from Congress.
In June’s decision in Loper Bright, the Supreme Court overturned its own precedent that said courts should defer to the experts in federal agencies when it came to interpreting any ambiguities.
decisions have already led judges to block or strike down a number of Biden administration rules, including a student debt relief plan, overtime pay eligibility, and regulations on net neutrality.
The Supreme Court rulings have since been cited in more than 100 cases, a figure that is expected to rise as emboldened right-wing groups and Republican-appointed judges take aim at federal rules and regulations.
Musk and Ramaswamy also argue that civil service protections won’t stop them from recommending mass firings of federal workers.
“The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation,” they wrote. “But the statute allows for ‘reductions in force’ that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to ‘prescribe rules governing the competitive service.’ That power is broad.”
Trump “can implement any number of ‘rules governing the competitive service’ that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area,” they added.
Government watchdogs have already found so-called waste amounts to less than $300 billion a year. Last year, House Republicans fought off severe austerity budget proposals from their far-right flank, and Trump failed to make deep cuts to domestic programs during his administration after his signature sweeping tax cuts that largely benefited corporations and high earners. Trump now wants to make those cuts permanent.
The DOGE panel is expected to issue a final report on July 4, 2026 before it is disbanded.
